


Escape in Three Directions

by Yahtzee



Category: Alias
Genre: Multi, Prostitution, Threesome, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-15
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:26:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Irina's separate missions in Nicaragua collide, and the resulting games they play entangle Katya, Irina's captors and their own darkest instincts</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place about halfway through the third season, shortly after the episode "Crossings." Although there is no nonconsensual sex in this story, those who find such content triggering may nonetheless wish to skip this one.

_Outside Rivas, Nicaragua_

 

"What's the matter, Ingo? Something you don't like?"

German arms dealer Ingo Krauss – who is in truth Jack Bristow, CIA agent, deep undercover – remains impassive. If he were genuinely to begin naming off everything about this situation he doesn't like, it would take a while. "I want us to conduct our business. Is this too much to ask?"

Some of the dark eyes in the room think that it is. Eduardo, who understands more than the others do and yet still not enough, is more willing to play up to Krauss. "No way. We're there, okay? Let's do this thing."

He's in a small, squalid room in a large, squalid compound; the heat is blistering, the smell of sweat and marijuana thick in the air all the time. At this moment, he's seated across from Eduardo Reyes, a low-level courier in the illegal arms trade who has higher-level friends. One of these friends is – or was – Ingo Krauss, who has had a long, hard couple of weeks, undergoing interrogation in US captivity, stripped of his freedom from torture by the Patriot Act. Very early in the process, the CIA learned that Krauss and Reyes never met face-to-face, and that Reyes is better connected than they'd thought. And that's what brought Jack here.

Jack was sick of speaking German by day two, and sick of these jackals by hour two. Within another week, the CIA's trap will be sprung and he'll be rid of them. For now, he's trapped here, pretending to be someone he's not, someone he has no desire to be.

Eager to please, Eduardo talks Jack through some of his trade routes, naming contacts, mapping out specific locales. Jack's memory is a precise instrument, but even he finds himself hard-pressed to retain this much information at this level of detail. A few bits of data stand out from the rest: an FBI agent who's taking kickbacks to let them dock in Florida, sources for false documentation, the first solid intel they've gotten on Anna Espinoza in two years. Jack keeps interrogating Eduardo the way Ingo Krauss would, demanding insurance for his investment; the afternoon heat is oppressive, plastering his pale shirt to his body. Even the stucco walls that surround him are hot, but he presses on.

One of Eduardo's lieutenants – young for the job, knife-scarred, obviously still a little drunk from the night before – has been chafing under the bridle he has to put on his temper for Krauss. Jack has noticed that since he arrived five days ago and has watched him closely. The challenge isn't unexpected when it comes: "Wait, wait, wait – what are you asking about Espinoza for? You work with US. Not with K Directorate. Not with that bitch."

"I work with whomever I choose." Inwardly Jack curses himself for asking too much; this boy's arrogant demand is meaningless, but it might lead Eduardo to wonder whether Krauss wouldn't know all this about Espinoza already.

Eduardo doesn't seem to be that introspective, though. "Shut up already." He gestures dismissively to the boy. "Say something when you have something important to say. Which means never."

That takes it too far; humiliated and furious at being dismissed by his idol, the boy is on his feet in an instant. His anger isn't directed at Eduardo, though, but at the interloper who took him away. "Some of us are tired of you coming in here and giving us orders. You give us money, we do a job. That's it. Got it?"

Jack's natural inclination would be to ignore this; it's scarcely worth notice. Unfortunately, he has to obey Krauss' natural inclinations. Those jagged gears are grinding within him now, telling him what to do, telling him not to care.

"That doesn't make us your slaves or your servants, and you don't get to come in here and –"

Jack has his pistol in his hand in half a second; half a second more, and one of the boy's kneecaps explodes in blood and bone. Screaming fills the room even before Jack fires again and sends the second knee the way of the first.

The boy's shrieks are the only sound in the room then; coal-colored smoke rises from the pistol as Jack holsters it. When Jack breathes in, he can smell the dusty, metallic edge of blood in the air. He knows that scent well.

Eduardo sighs and motions to the others. "Get him out of here and clean this up. Damn, Krauss, you didn't have to do both knees."

"Back to work," is Jack's only response, but the truth of it hits him hard. No, he didn't have to do both knees.

"Christ!" Eduardo is clearly more upset about the mess on the floor than he is with the sobbing boy on the floor. "You know how the K Directorate people described you to me? They said you were a machine made of black metal. They didn't lie."

Jack allows himself to be relieved that they didn't follow it up with a picture. But that is only a poor distraction from the widening puddle of blood on the floor.

Damn, damn, damn. He never should have taken this assignment. Another agent could have done this job, and Jack should have declined it. Perhaps Michael Vaughn would benefit from six weeks away from both his wife and Jack's daughter. Vaughn, of course, is entirely the wrong age to pretend to be Ingo Krauss, but in Jack's opinion, perspective would do him a world of good.

Perspective is the last thing Jack needs.

When Jack left Los Angeles for Nicaragua, Sydney insisted on driving him to the airfield. She makes excuses for them to be together now, dropping by his apartment when she's "running errands," calling to ask his opinion about the most trivial things. He's always glad to hear from her, he always makes the time, even drops by and calls in return. At first it felt as though they were playing the roles of loving parent and child, but it doesn't feel like that any longer. It has become real.

"You'll be careful," she said to him, before she put him on the plane. She wasn't an agent speaking to another agent, but a daughter wanting a promise.

"I'll be careful," he said, touching her shoulder. Her beautiful face lighted in a smile.

For years, Jack couldn't remember how to be the loving, attentive father that Sydney needed. Then he thought he'd lost her, and damned himself for putting his duty as a spy ahead of his duty as a parent. Finally, he spent a year in solitary confinement, knowing Sydney was alive and in trouble but that he couldn't reach her, and promising himself that if he ever, ever got the chance again, it was all going to be different.

Jack has kept his word. He has become the man Sydney needs him to be, a role that feels more natural, more real, to him all the time. But that man has very little to do with this room, this work, or the ragged screams of the boy who's being dragged down the hall. A separate, sticky line of gore traces the path of each leg.

If I told Irina about this, he thinks, she'd laugh at my reaction. More troubling than this is the fact that he wants to tell Irina about it. If there's one way to make his mind more confused than it already is, that's by bringing Irina into it.

Jack cannot afford to confuse himself any more deeply than he already has. He has to find his way back to Sydney, and soon.

"Back to work," Jack says again. Eduardo shrugs and pulls out another map.

The rest of the session, Jack lets the menace in the room simmer, broiling up from all of them like heat and sweat. He knows the others are now very aware of his pistol. When they're finally done, Jack makes quite a show of wanting some space to himself. They give it to him, poorly hiding their relief.

This allows him to pass without suspicion from the main hall into what passes for a control center.

Free at last from the need to pretend to be anyone else, Jack straightens his back, rolls up his shirtsleeves and gets to work. He hacks into their security with little difficulty; this operation is low-tech, so much so that it until now it had worked to Eduardo's advantage. Marshall can't even find the parts to make the equipment that would be compatible – they aren't manufactured anymore. Which is how Jack's presence became necessary here in the first place.

He's able to turn off the electric locks that stand vigil over each of the armament-storage facilities; the CIA will be able to access those areas easily on their arrival. Eduardo's men don't need to realize he's done this, of course, so Jack activates a code he designed years ago, back when this technology was current: It bounces false signals back and forth, reporting the locks operational, lying for him all the time.

For a moment he remembers the CIA reports on the excellent computer work done by Irina's organization – remembers how she looked when she sifted through the Echelon files for their purposes and her own. Her hands were so broad and swift, so purposeful, muscled down to the fingers. He remembers those hands well, so many delicious things they can do.

Jack closes his eyes tightly and damns the heat. Then he finishes his work and gets the hell out of the control room before anybody notices where he's gone.

**

That night, they try to appease his temper by throwing a party.

"What's the matter, Ingo?" Eduardo says, cupping his hand appreciatively over his girl's ass. "You don't like girls?" All around him in the basement hall, men are laughing, drinking, groping the young women they've paid for. They've had a long, hard couple of weeks, preparing for a large shipment coming in from one of Ingo Krauss' Ukrainian contacts; tonight, they're going to let off some steam.

"When I see one I like, I'll have her," Jack replies, almost sneering. "I'm more selective than your men." Eduardo laughs and turns back to his girl for the night.

Jack has no objections to prostitution or its patronage; he spends much of his time with people who give and accept money for more troubling acts than sex. In the mid-1980s, his desire in as much wreckage as his heart, he took advantage of the discretion and disposability of a few professionals himself. But those were, without exception, women who had made their choices and could be expected to honor his. These girls – their average age is probably 15. He suspects they're desperate at best, slaves at worst, and the thought of using one of them is repugnant.

But he also has a cover to maintain.

He goes and pours himself another drink. One of the girls – no doubt seeing that he is the cleanest and most sober man in the room – attaches herself to his side and, by way of introduction, offers to suck him off. Jack puts his arm around her shoulders, claiming her for his own; she'll do as well as any other. A relieved smile illuminates her round face for a moment, before she assumes her best version of a seductive pout. The girl's long-fingered hands explore his body inexpertly. She hasn't been at this long.

Quickly, Jack pours her a tequila; she's too young for it, but that's the least of her problems. She gulps it down, her long brown throat rippling with every swallow. More to the point, her hands are now busy holding the glass.

Jack hasn't taken a woman to bed since the last time he was with Irina, now more than a year and a half ago. Just the nearness of sex – the upward tilt of young breasts beneath thin fabric, the way the men fondle the girls they're dancing with – has more power over him than it ought to. Not enough to make him enjoy this spectacle, but enough to make him wish for -- better things. Time to get the hell out of here.

So he steers his girl back to his room of the compound. Her hair is in two pigtails, fastened with glittery pink beads, and those are what he focuses on as they go upstairs. Even as he shuts the door behind him, she flops down on the bed and lifts up her white skirt. She's naked beneath, and Jack has more than a glimpse of thighs and dark curls before he can push her skirt down again.

She stares at him in dull surprise, and he claims to be sick – the alcohol. At this, she springs into action, getting him settled on the bed, wringing out a cloth with water and putting it on his forehead. The girl – Gabriela is the name she gives, though it's no doubt false – knows how to take care of people. Somebody must have taken care of her once.

He thanks her, tries to make some conversation. It's a mistake. "Why are you – how did you come to do this?"

Gabriela says, so casually she might be describing the weather, "My father sold me."

Jack thinks of Sydney, and the rotgut tequila churns in his gut, and in another few moments his head is over the basin, vomiting for real. Gabriela pats his back and clucks her tongue in sympathy.

**

Sydney is holding out a wineglass for Jack to fill. But when he pours, only black powder and oil flow from the bottle. He watches his daughter's face change as coal-colored smoke swirls around the goblet.

"I don't know this vintage," she says.

"It's all we have." Jack wants to take the glass from her, but it's too late; the jailers have closed the glass wall already, and now he can't touch her, only see her. She looks so beautiful, but so sad.

"It's okay. I'll drink it." Sydney smiles as she holds the goblet up, as if for a toast. "I love you."

His clumsy hands of stone slam against the glass, in despair at his own impotence. "Sydney, don't drink it. You don't have to. Give it to me, and I'll drink it for you."

"You already drank it, didn't you?" He nods, though he can't remember when. "Then we should drink it together. Besides, I can do it. Watch me, Daddy."

And then she's lifted her cup to her lips, as though it were filled with wine and not that strange, brackish mess; the powder shifts around the bottom like silt, tossed about in the oily liquid. Coal-colored smoke flows over the rim, onto her hand, and it turns her skin the stone-gray. No, this can't happen. Not to Sydney. He has to stop her, no matter what, and he hits the glass again and again and again --

Jack awakens with a start; it's dawn. Gabriela is asleep beside him in the bed; she must have climbed in after he fell asleep. If her owners work her as hard as Jack suspects they do, she no doubt needs the rest. Now that some light is coming in through the window, he can see just how young she is. Her cheeks are soft with baby fat.

Jack's room smells like sweat, his own and the girl's. He brushes off his pale suit – hopelessly wrinkled from having been slept in – and goes to the window to breathe some fresh air. It's already hot. Outside, a snake slithers along a leafy branch, green inside green. Something about the scents of the world outside – fresh and alive, dirt and leaves and some kind of crimson flower with drooping petals – awakens the desire he hadn't known the night before.

He thinks of Irina, and shuts his eyes.

If she were here, if she were the one lying in that bed, the sordid, rank room wouldn't matter. Or the dirt on the floor, or the dingy walls – none of it. Jack knows he'd be incapable of noticing anything in the room but her. He imagines her waking to his touch, smiling up at him hot and slow, arching her back so that her breasts fill his hands –

But when Jack tries to imagine kissing her, it's Katya's mouth he remembers.

Dammit. That is not a good direction for his thoughts to be going, not at all.

Jack is gifted at self-deception, but not even he could lie to himself about the most basic fact: Irina is the only woman he's ever loved, probably the only one he will ever love. He wants and needs her as badly now as he ever did when she called herself Laura, and the fact that he's unlikely to be with her again soon, if ever, doesn't change that.

But Katya has an allure of her own, and he can't lie to himself about that either. After months of solitude and months more of simple loneliness, it was Katya who first kissed him, who first reawakened the slow stirring of desire in his body. He'd banked those fires down deep while he was imprisoned; Katya fanned those embers into a blaze that takes wild directions of its own. That gives her a kind of power that he wishes she didn't have.

So does the fact that she's Irina's sister. Normally, that might be a turn-off, or at least a warning sign, but it only aggravates this situation. Being closer to Katya would mean being closer to Irina, in a way; the reasoning is twisted, but Jack realizes that means it fits their current relationship all too well.

Katya is not Irina, and he does not love her; she is enough like and unlike Irina that he can want her, and it doesn't feel like betrayal. It feels only natural.

Irina, no doubt, would disagree.

Enough of this. What happened between him and Katya was a moment's impulse, no more. Probably he will never see her again. Whatever may yet come to pass for him and Irina appears to be entirely beyond his control for the time being. And he has more pressing concerns to concentrate on.

He tucks a few bills into Gabriela's fist, clenched even in her sleep, and hopes she will be able to keep them for herself. But he doubts it.

**

The next day passes in much the same way: Eduardo's men all have hangovers, which makes them even surlier and more resentful than usual – but they're trained enough to go out on their usual patrols. Jack keeps demanding the information Krauss would demand, turning it that way and this to get the information the CIA can use. There are trails of dried blood on the floor, but he manages to ignore them; what's done is done.

In mid-afternoon, when it's somehow even hotter than it's ever been before, he excuses himself to his room, supposedly for a siesta. As much as he craves a shower, he forces himself to sit on his bunk and take notes about what he's heard today, while the information is still fresh. Jack encodes his notes as he goes, a process as simple and automatic to him as writing in cursive. Granted, it's not the world's most complex code, but Eduardo doesn't have anybody on staff who can break it.

Just as he's beginning to think he might be able to take that shower after all, Jack hears shouting downstairs. They've captured someone –

\--someone who was breaking into the armaments-storage chambers. DAMN it.

Jack grinds his teeth as he goes downstairs. Who could have detected the changes he made so quickly? Who would have been watching them so closely? Somebody else was monitoring this situation, somebody good enough to detect alterations and move fast, but somebody who got caught nevertheless. Whoever it is, Jack hopes to have the chance to kick his ass; now he has twice as much work to do before the next shipment arrives, and security's going to be even tighter. Nothing about this situation is good.

Then he goes into the basement, sees who the guards are clustered around, and realizes it's a thousand times worse than he thought.

Irina sits on her knees in the middle of the room, her arms handcuffed in front of her. Her high forehead is smudged with dirt and blood, and a tiny cut at the corner of her wide mouth glints, blood reflecting the light. The gray tank top she's wearing reveals scrapes along her slim, muscled arms; she didn't go down without a fight. She holds her head up like a queen who can't deign to notice the peasants around her. Doesn't she realize she's in trouble?

Guilt slashes at Jack, punctures his cool. She came because she recognized his codes – and because of that, she made the wrong assumptions. Whatever mess she's in is his fault. So it's up to him to get her out of it.

"Talk to me, bitch!" Eduardo waves his pistol in the general direction of her face. Contempt drips off him with the sweat; obviously, he has no idea who he's dealing with. "Who sent you? What fool sends a gringo puta to do his work?"

Irina says nothing. She might be a statue, an Egyptian terra cotta -- still, serene and eternal. This place cannot touch her, or so she believes. Jack never knows whether to damn her foolhardy confidence or envy it.

"You don't hear me?" The muzzle of Eduardo's pistol presses into her temple. Irina doesn't even blink. "You're gonna hear me."

Jack is 95% certain that Eduardo has no intention of pulling the trigger yet. But even a 5% margin of error is way the hell too much. He steps forward. "What fool leaves himself open to a woman's interference?"

Irina's head doesn't move, but her eyes dart over to him for just a moment. Her features remain smooth and impassive, betraying no recognition or surprise; of course, she would've been expecting him. For his part, Jack gives her only a moment of his attention before fixing his glare upon Eduardo.

Eduardo, his fragile patience already frayed past endurance, begins gesturing wildly with the gun. "We were sabotaged! Somebody took down our systems!"

"The same systems you intend to use to protect my merchandise?" Jack knows he's laying the German accent on thick, but that works: It's common, at moments of strong emotion or stress. "That doesn't inspire confidence."

"I swear to you, Ingo, we never had anything like this before –"

"See to it that you never do again." Jack walks closer, so near to Irina now that he could reach out and touch her. "I suggest you investigate."

Eduardo kicks Irina's thigh with his heavy-booted foot. "We'll get it out of her, don't worry."

Jack wishes he were free to wrench the pistol away and use it to remove Eduardo's face. Instead, he puts his hands around Irina's neck, his fingers encircling her throat. "I prefer to handle this matter myself."

Before Eduardo can consent or refuse, Jack jerks Irina to her feet. To maximize the distance between her and the pistol, he swings her around, shoving her roughly into the wall. Irina stifles a quick moan of pain – one he's pretty sure she faked for effect.

Although Eduardo is clearly disappointed to miss out on his fun, he wants to stay on Ingo Krauss' good side. "You do that."

Eduardo doesn't leave, nor do the other guards show any sign of doing so. That complicates things, but fortunately, Jack's partner in this charade is a brilliant actress – as he knows very well.

Jack grabs the knot of hair at the nape of Irina's neck and jerks her head back. "We'll start with something simple," he says. "What is your name?" She spits in his direction, and he shoves her back into the wall.

With her face hidden from the guards by Jack's shoulder, Irina dares to meet his eye for a moment. He tries to determine what it is she's trying to communicate: panic, anger, pain?

Lazily, she winks. The game is on.


	2. Chapter 2

Irina's on her knees in the floor of a basement that might as well be a dungeon. Her body hurts in a dozen places, both from the fight she was in an hour ago and the beating she's pretending to take right now. The metal bracelets of the handcuffs around her wrists chafe at her skin, and it's so damn hot she feels like she's going to melt, or burn.

She looks up at Jack, who's standing above her with his fists clenched. None of the rest matters, because it's Jack.

"We can end this quickly," Jack says. His German accent's quite good; Irina can even hear the influences from growing up near the Polish border, the way Ingo Krauss did. He grips her chin, hard, and she winces enough for the guards to believe it. "You – I don't care about you. Do me a favor, tell me who you're working for, and I'll let you live. It doesn't matter to me."

For a few moments, Irina considers inventing a name, a backstory, all of it. Improvising on short notice is one of her specialties, almost a hobby. It would be interesting to see how Jack would play along; she suspects his own skills in this area are considerable, and this is one game they haven't yet shared.

But no. This scenario doesn't need to be embroidered upon, so there's no point in complicating their roles more than necessary.

Jack strikes her, hand open but hard, so that her head snaps back and she wobbles, off-balance, before falling onto her side. Shit – that hurt.

Of course, she reminds herself, some of the blows have to be real; there's no way to feign a beating without taking some damage. And Jack has chosen well. When she tries to breathe in, hot blood has filled her nose, slicking the back of her throat and spilling out onto her lips. A nosebleed will make this messy, and Irina will look as though she's in far worse shape than she is. All the same, this part is much less enjoyable.

So be it. It's Jack's hand closing around her shoulder and hauling her upright again; it's Jack's face so close to hers, his eyes dark with concern the wretches around them can't see. This moment is well worth the price of admission.

"Do you work for yourself, perhaps?" Jack squats next to her, studying her face with care. Irina can tell he's trying to see just how badly he hurt her. "These men believe a woman couldn't be in charge. I know differently."

Irina has to bite her tongue to stop from smiling. Baiting her like that – oh, she thinks, not fair, Jack. Not fair.

Maybe he sees that slight wavering in her composure. Maybe he's just continuing the charade. Regardless of his reasons, Jack shoves her to the floor, hands around her neck. He grips her very loosely, though his hands are appropriately tense. It's not even uncomfortable, and with the blood still flowing thick from her nose, Irina has little trouble pretending to cough and choke and struggle. It's mindless playacting, and she's able to use the opportunity to turn her thoughts to other things.

A few hours ago, Irina had little idea she'd actually get to be with Jack again. They'd received word that Ingo Krauss was in U.S. custody, and had expected this group to have fled soon afterward. It seemed like a good chance to pick off some abandoned wares. So it had come as an unexpected and delightful surprise when she'd scanned the armaments-storage chambers and recognized Jack's old code. At that point, she'd thought the CIA had already moved in. That made stealing the weapons a hazard, but still worthwhile. Besides, it would make a nice reminder for Jack. Forget-me-not.

Her eagerness made her move before fully calculating the possibilities; CIA custody for Krauss plus a CIA agent's involvement had made Irina assume that it was the CIA she was dealing with. An amateur's error, one only desire could lead her into – and one that Irina doesn't plan on making again anytime soon. She'd gone in expecting that the perimeters would be guarded by CIA agents, with standard-issue equipment and standard-issue minds. Instead, she'd run into a pack of half-drunk teenagers with Uzis, less predictable and more trouble than any professional force. Irina put up the fight she knew they'd be expecting, but all the while planned on talking her way out of this after getting to headquarters – and, of course, finding out just how Jack was involved in the first place.

Now that she's here, Irina thinks it's in her best interest to stay put for a while. She can handle this scenario; so can Jack.

And if worse comes to worst, Katya will take care of it. Katya is so very close by.

Irina opens her eyes, as if in a last desperate plea for air. Jack's face is near hers, his expression set, his lips pressed together in a pale line. Oh, yes, Irina remembers – Katya is very close indeed.

Jack gets up and dusts himself off; he looks a wreck, his pale suit dirty and sweaty, his hands dark with her blood. Irina curls into a ball, as if trying to protect herself. Coolly, he says, "Put her in the back room. Leave her there."

"You giving up?" says the tall one, the one who seems to be the leader.

"This one," Jack says, nudging her feet with one of his own, "won't be beaten down. She'll be worn down. Time is what she needs, Eduardo. Time to think about just what can happen to her here."

Good. Jack gave her the name, Eduardo. Never know when that might prove useful.

Eduardo steps closer; he has a long, horsey face, handsome in its way, arrogant to the core. "Why does she have to think about it? We can show her. You don't want to do it? I can do it." The tip of his tongue flickers at the corner of his mouth.

"I told you before, we're doing this my way. Or we can end our business here and now." Jack folds his arms, just the way Krauss does. It's a delight, really, watching him play the games she normally thinks of as her own.

"Your way, then." Eduardo isn't happy; Jack's pushing him right to his limit – but, so far, not past it. He gestures at a door that seems to lead to some kind of storage area or closet; there's a reinforced glass panel in the door, so probably they'll leave her hands bound. Damn.

Jack hauls her to her feet and shoves her toward the doorway as one of the young, gun-toting men opens it. She makes sure to stumble a few times, as if disoriented. When he pushes her inside and forces back down onto the floor, his hand is on hers. He brushes his thumb along the curve of her palm, the smallest and most gentle caress imaginable; Irina is startled to feel her throat tighten.

"Later," Jack says, slamming the door behind him.

Irina stretches out on the floor; no furniture in here save for one metal table that would make an even worse resting place than this. She rests her heavy, aching head on her arms and wonders if she should cry, as part of her disguise. Finally she decides there's no point.

**

"I'm glad I bargained for the pillow and mattress," Irina tells Jack. "Now you can use them."

Jack nods. He is pacing the edges of the glass cell like a cougar in a zoo. "Why am I in here?"

"Because I'm not." Irina feels as though there should be more to the explanation than that, but nothing comes to mind. "I'll visit you sometimes. Bring you Chinese food."

"I'm hungry," Jack says. He pauses in front of her, then leans against the glass the way he used to, the way that tells her so much.

Irina says, "I'm hungry too." She splays her hands out on the glass, palm to palm with him, and she wills the wall between them to melt like ice. It's as cold as ice.

Then Katya steps up behind Jack, sliding her arms around him – one over his shoulder, the other around his waist. Jack breathes out in a sigh, and Irina can't tell if it's a sigh of resignation or of relief.

Katya says, "I'll take care of everything." Her hair is long and silky, the way it was when they were girls. Some of it falls over Jack's shoulder, and it shines in the light.

"Why are you in there?" Irina asks her sister.

It's Jack who answers her. "Because you're not."

Irina jerks awake with a start. For one moment, she is disoriented and upset; then she tries to breathe in, feels a jab of pain in her injured nose, and remembers where she is. She also remembers all the good reasons she has not to sleep.

Some of the henchmen who've worked with Irina whisper, behind her back when they think she cannot hear, that she never sleeps. This is untrue.

No, she never has to sleep; it's not a necessity. Autocircadian meditation allows her to rejuvenate mentally and physically in only a couple of hours, during which she is conscious enough to be alert to potential trouble around her. So when she's on a mission where time is tight, or in company she doesn't trust, that's what she relies upon.

But when she has the luxuries of time and safety, she also indulges in the luxury of sleep. Sleep is more purely pleasurable than any activity besides eating or sex; Irina often wonders if people who have to sleep ever fully realize this.

The only other time when she sleeps is when she's trapped. During her months of confinement in Los Angeles, Irina slept nearly every night; it ate up some of the endless hours during which she couldn't talk to Sydney or Jack. And so she allowed herself to catnap this afternoon as she lies on the floor.

Dreams – Irina could do without dreams. Usually she doesn't remember them. But now the image of Katya with her arms around Jack is painted in her mind, indelible and unchanging.

The image doesn't disturb her. Maybe it should. Irina closes her eyes and begins the cycle of breathing that will lower her into a meditative trance, where she will be beyond the reach of memory, or of dreams.

**

Jack doesn't come back until just after sundown. By that time, Irina feels like herself again.

He comes through the door with a bag that she suspects contains something to eat – a rumbling in her stomach underlines this hope – and a large plastic tumbler of water. He hands it to her without the slightest change in his stony expression, but he says, "Are you all right?"

So. They're being watched, but not listened to. Irina keeps a blank, frightened expression in place. "Fine, except for wanting a bath."

"I know how you feel." He's still speaking with the German accent; sometimes, once you've nailed a difficult speech pattern, it's best to keep it every second until it is no longer necessary. But it renders his conversation slightly surreal.

Irina unwraps her dinner, which seems to be strips of beef wrapped in a tortilla – better by far than she was hoping for. Greedily, she wolfs it down; her mouth is still sore from the blows, but the hunger outweighs the pain. "Tell me, Jack." She talks through a mouthful of food. "How badly have I wrecked your plans?"

"You've done enough," he says, which tells her nothing at all. Smart man. "How badly have I wrecked yours?"

He doesn't realize that she came here primarily to be near him – or, if he does, he's not going to admit it. Just as well. They need to discuss logistics first. "I don't need anything but an exit. When can you get me out?"

Jack breathes out heavily. "Not sure. I'm going to have to engineer a distraction without CIA resources, and I'm not going to be able to do that today."

"How long do we have?"

"Three days, maybe four. I don't have an exact arrival time." Then he relaxes, his posture shifting as he drops the indifferent mask. "We're alone. Irina, I'm sorry."

"For what? For this?" Irina points at her nose as she gulps down some water. "Really, Jack. It's not as though I didn't have it coming."

That hits him every bit as hard as she'd hoped. "I didn't like doing that."

Or he didn't want to like it. The former is more likely, Irina thinks, but she wouldn't mind getting in touch with Jack's darker side again. An experiment for another time. "Tell me – how is Sydney?"

"Better, I think." Jack is never more handsome to her than when he thinks about their daughter. Something in his face changes, becomes softer and yet stronger. "She misses Vaughn badly. Other than that, I think she's getting her bearings. Knowing that she was the one who erased her own memories – it doesn't make up for the lost time, but I think she doesn't feel as powerless anymore."

Irina doesn't react in surprise the way she ought to, doesn't ask the questions she should. That particular charade is over. She says only, "I'm glad."

"You were with her, in Rome."

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell me."

"I found out after you were imprisoned, not before." He must believe this – if he never believed her before, if he never believes her again, Irina needs him to know that this much is true. "I would never let you think that Sydney was dead, not if I knew otherwise."

"I realized that." Jack kneels beside her, examining the damage he's done to her face. "When we talked on the computer – she'd asked you not to say anything, hadn't she?"

Irina nods. Jack's understanding surprises her, perhaps more than it should. "She made me swear never to reveal it. Not even to her."

"I suspected as much." They're so close now. Irina longs to kiss him, and knows he wants the same, but they can't afford to relax their guard that much; they may be unobserved for the moment, but there's no telling when someone will walk up to that glass-paneled door. Instead, Jack dabs a handkerchief with some of her water, then strokes the dried blood from her face. Each cool touch makes her shiver. "During those years – when Sydney remembered what they did to her –" Jack's eyes are hard now, and Irina knows that members of the Covenant will see his dark side someday. "Did you – did she let you take care of her?"

She closes her eyes, so he can't see how much his question moves her, or how much the answer hurts her. "No."

Sydney was so damaged. So broken. They spent more time together than they had since her daughter was six years old; they even lived together for a month. April in Rome. Sunshine on the cobblestones, church bells chiming on the hour, a stone angel that guarded them during the night. Those should have been among the happiest days of Irina's life. But the only times Sydney even seemed alive were when they talked about the past, when they were all a family. And she wouldn't talk about those days often. "Jack, when I looked into her eyes, I couldn't find her there. A stranger stared out at me."

"Jesus." Jack breathes out heavily. "She doesn't remember any of it. Sometimes she dreams – but that's all."

"Good." Irina found the doctor for Sydney; she went with her to Hong Kong, hating every moment of the journey, knowing that most of the few memories Sydney had of working with her mother were about to be destroyed forever. But it was the last thing she could do for Sydney, so she did it. "Now – does she let you take care of her?"

"A little. She doesn't talk to me about what's on her mind very often, but – she talks to me. We spend more time together." Jack's face has taken on a light Irina never saw during her seven months of captivity in Los Angeles; it reminds her of when Sydney was tiny, and she and her father shone in each other's orbit like twin stars. That tells her more than his words do. Irina is both grateful for the love Sydney and Jack have and jealous of it; then again, those warring emotions aren't new. Then he says, "I got you into this mess."

"That doesn't matter, as long as you get me out of it." Irina is still fairly sure she could remove herself from this situation on her own, though the means might be distasteful; Eduardo didn't bother disguising his interest in her. Far easier and more enjoyable to watch Jack do the work, in an attempt to exorcise his ill-founded guilt. "What kind of distraction are you going to create? I'll do my part when the time comes, but it would help to have warning."

"I'm still working on that."

Irina considers her next move carefully as she finishes her water. On the most basic level, it's the prudent thing to do: safe, reliable, certain. On another level altogether, it's a very risky play – high stakes and uncertain odds. But that gives it a certain luster, in Irina's opinion; whenever she's in Monte Carlo, baccarat is her game. "I have an idea."

Jack smiles. "Thought you might."

She watches that smile very intently as she says, "We should bring Katya in on this."

God, the way his face changes. The smile's gone in an instant, but not because he's upset or dismayed. Instead, Jack's face is blank, the way he thinks is unreadable. It tells her too much. "Katya's here?"

"Our base of operations is a ship, the Lastochka, docked at Rivas. Tell the guard that you're part of the Portuguese network, and the password is 'Lindisfarne.' They'll take you up to her."

"And she can bring your resources in on this. We can plan, get you out of here long before the CIA shows up." He's so businesslike that it's almost convincing.

"Katya will be very surprised to see you," Irina says. "Of course, she won't let it show."

"I'll go tomorrow, early, before most of these men wake up." Jack's eyes meet hers, and for the moment at least, his attention belongs to her alone. "While I'm gone, I won't be able to protect you."

Irina allows her hands to brush against his; the chain between the handcuffs clinks. "I'll take care of myself until you come back."

"As soon as I can," Jack says. "I should go. Much longer and this will be suspicious."

She nods as he rises to leave. Just before he opens the door, she whispers, "It's good to see you."

"And you." He watches her for one moment more, stone mask already in place. But his voice is still human as he says, simply, "Irina."

Then he's gone, and she's alone in a room that's becoming darker by the moment.

The next time Irina sees Jack, he will be coming to her from Katya. And then she'll know more. So much more.

When Irina sent Katya to Jack, she knew they would be attracted to one another. In fact, she had counted on it. Katya's help was necessary to ensure Sydney's safety, and Katya has been recalcitrant lately, impatient to destroy Sloane, chafing under Irina's orders. Best, Irina thought, if Katya felt that she was doing it for her own reasons – even that she was doing it for Jack's sake. As for Jack, Irina knows well the effect long-term solitary confinement has on the mind. Freedom returns long before control, and if the right woman showed up at the wrong time, there could be – inconveniences. Nothing Irina couldn't handle, but she'd prefer not to handle it. Best, she thought, to engineer an infatuation for him with someone she knew well and had some control over. Jack and Katya had similar personalities; she thought they'd strike sparks, and she intended to use those sparks for her own fire.

As far as it went, the plan worked. But as Irina knows, her problem is never that her plans fail to work. The problem is when the plans work too well. Jack and Katya – that may have worked too well.

Setting her thoughts aside, Irina pushes back so that her back is against the wall, the stucco hot even after dark, even through the fabric of her tank top. Sweat beads up along her forehead and her arms; she welcomes the cool moisture and concentrates on it, becoming only her skin. Only a shell, something that cannot hurt or think or plan or dream.


	3. Chapter 3

It is Jack's wedding day, and Irina is walking up the aisle.

"She's beautiful," says Arvin Sloane, from his place as best man. Jack nods, wordless at the sight of her. The scent of lilies is thick in the air, and Saint Saean floats up from the organ, ringing in the rafters.

Something's wrong with this, though. Why are there so many people in the church? They ran away to get married, didn't they? It seems as though he remembers driving through the rain, laughing and jubilant, Arvin and Emily their witnesses, piled in with the luggage in the back seat of the Olds. But here they are, surrounded by their friends – Bill Vaughn and Thomas Brill, Judy Barnett and Francie Calfo. Light streams through stained-glass windows, jewelling everyone in red and blue and green. They're all happy, and why shouldn't they be?

The veil over Irina's face can't hide her smile. A few steps across from Jack, Katya waits for her sister, holding a bouquet of yellow roses. "Don't be nervous," she whispers, a co-conspirator. He winks at her and turns back to his bride.

An arm, sleeved in lace, slips into his own. Jack has never known joy like this – didn't realize he could know it, that his heart was capable of containing so much.

Arvin holds out his hand. "Well, Jack? Aren't you going to give the bride away?"

"What?" Jack stares at him.

"That's your job, isn't it?"

"No, don't!" When Jack turns, Sydney is the bride, and it's Sydney's tear-stained face he can see behind the veil. "Don't give me away, Dad. Not to him."

"I won't, sweetheart. Hold on to my hand."

Sydney's fingers grip his, but he can feel her being pulled away by a force as inexorable as gravity. Sloane just watches, smiling. "She's just so beautiful, Jack."

"Irina?" Isn't she supposed to be here? Can't she help him?

Emily, all of 25 years old, looks up at him puzzled. "Who's Irina?" she says. "And where's Laura?"

Jack awakens – breathes in, then breathes out, steadying himself. He rubs his face with his hands, and so the first things he sees are the dried crescents of Irina's blood beneath his fingernails.

He washed yesterday – scouring his hands until they felt raw, thinking about Lady Macbeth – but it hasn't done the trick. Jack hates being able to look at his hands and see her blood. There was a time, not so long ago, he thought he was ready for that. He was wrong.

What he needs is a shower. Maybe if he could spare the five minutes it would take for just a cursory shower, he'd finally feel clean. But Irina is in danger, and she's going to stay in danger until he gets help and gets back, and that means he doesn't have five minutes to spare. As dawn begins to light the sky, Jack's out of the compound and on the road. The note he leaves behind will allay suspicions if he can get back around noon. Later than that – well. He won't be later.

The trip into Rivas takes less than an hour and feels like a thousand years. With every jolt of the Jeep over the stony dirt roads, Jack thinks of Irina back at the compound, exposed and vulnerable. She doesn't agree, of course; she thinks she's fucking Superwoman. So far she's won every high-stakes bet she placed, but even Irina can't beat the odds forever. And as Jack well knows, it's a mistake to assume your downfall will be at the hands of a superior or an equal. He's seen good agents felled by amateurs, by a stalled-out car, even by tripping as they ran. It sounds like sacrilege to say that a woman like Irina could meet her end at the hands of a two-bit player like Eduardo Reyes, but Jack knows it could happen -- even if Irina doesn't.

It's full light when Jack reaches the Pacific coast. The air is a few degrees cooler here, but it's still tropical, and the humidity makes up for the heat. Low, flat-roofed houses painted in brilliant shades line most of the inlets, and smaller boats fill the water. It takes him several minutes of questioning and one small bribe to locate the Lastochka.

"Lindisfarne," he says to one of the guards, wondering idly if Irina realizes that he recognizes the password's significance. Yes, he is with the Portuguese network. He's asked if he has a name to  
give; he says he doesn't. On the off chance it's not Katya in there, Jack doesn't intend to give anything away. If it is Katya, she'll follow Irina's instructions and let him in without a name. He understands that, somehow.

When he refuses to reveal his name, he doesn't consider the effect of surprise at all – which is why it's both shocking and somewhat gratifying to see Katya's eyes go wide when he's ushered into her stateroom.

"Jack Bristow," she says, pronouncing his name with as much ceremony and satisfaction as she did the first time they met. "My God. I thought I wouldn't see you again for years."

"It's been a long time. Six weeks," Jack says with a faint smile. She's wearing a loose blue T-shirt and battered work pants; her short hair is soaking wet from her morning bath, combed flat against her scalp. And yet she's still beautiful. He'd hoped Irina's presence would act as some sort of inoculation against his attraction to Katya, but apparently not. "Miss me?"

"To the point of distraction," she says pleasantly, meaning anything but. "The accent's new. It suits you."

"For the time being, I need it." Enough small talk. "I know you're wondering why Irina's not back. I'm afraid she's in trouble." Jack lays out the bare facts without any tact or hesitation; he senses Katya  
neither needs nor desires it. Katya puts one hand to her mouth as if in shock, but he can see the calculation in her dark eyes.

Only when he's finished the full explanation does Katya speak. "How many vehicles, did you say?"

"Two large trucks, two small trucks, and the Jeep I brought into Rivas. I think he can get access to more, but that's all he's got right now, and with the arms shipment due, he's unlikely to make any sudden changes."

Katya nods, considering. "I can handle that. If I give you some small explosives, can you strike from the inside?"

Striking from the inside will mean undoing all the CIA's efforts – basically, ruining his mission. But Jack's already got pages of intel, so this hasn't been entirely a waste of time. A splinter group could  
attack Reyes' compound at any point, so he'll have little trouble explaining this away. And even if he couldn't, he'd still do it. "Yes. Just give me a cue."

 

"Sundown," Katya says instantly. "Do what you can with the explosives. Then, as soon as the strike begins, get to Irina. You know the interior of the compound; that makes you the best one to get her out."

"Agreed." For a moment, he finds himself wanting to thank her – or expecting her to thank him. It's strange to realize that they share the same needs, that they owe each other nothing. Jack's not used to getting anything without bartering.

"Should you go back now?"

Jack would like nothing better, but he covered his tracks too well. "The note I left said I was arranging for false papers. I won't be able to make the necessary contact for another hour or so." He's not  
sure who he's reassuring when he adds, "Most of them don't get up until noon. They'll leave her alone."

Katya doesn't look convinced, but she accepts his explanation. "That gives us some time to catch up, doesn't it?" She steps forward, hands clasped behind her back, an eyebrow raised. Her proximity makes Jack all the more aware of the sweat that's already plastered his white-linen shirt to his back, of the heat in the room. "I must say, Jack –"

"Yes?"

Her smile widens. "You smell terrible."

What she's said is so undeniably true that Jack can't begin to take offense. "I haven't had a shower in two days."

"And most everyone you've been around hasn't showered in far longer," she says sympathetically. Katya takes the lapels of his jacket in her hands and lowers her face to his chest, breathing in deep. "From the scent of things, you're also the only one who isn't perpetually drunk or high. Or both, perhaps."

"Don't think I haven't considered it." If he had the luxury of letting his guard down, Jack would happily make a chemical escape.

Katya lets go and moves away from him, which is somehow simultaneously a disappointment and a relief. "You shouldn't start back for another hour or so. That gives you more than enough time to map out the compound. Why not take a shower first? I think the experience will be more pleasant for both of us, that way."

Both of us. Jack imagines them both in the shower, and the thought crackles along his skin like static electricity. Then he remembers a hotel bathroom in Oslo two years ago, Irina splayed out in the tub, arms falling to each side like vines, her lips parting slightly as she watched him undress. The nexus of confusion and desire makes him shut his eyes tightly for a moment.

It wasn't an innuendo, he tells himself. You're just – overheated. "A shower sounds great."

**

This is the goddamned greatest shower Jack has ever taken in his life.

The water's lukewarm – not cold enough to jolt, but cool enough to make him feel refreshed for the first time in two weeks. Jack dunks his head beneath the nozzle; the water pressure isn't all it could be, but he couldn't care less.

As his hand closes around the green rectangle of soap, he hears the bathroom door open. Through the whorled plastic that encloses the shower, he can see the blue shape of Katya's T-shirt, the black semicircle that must be her hair. Her face is only a blur, as his own nude body must be.

"Enjoying yourself?" she asks merrily.

"Ah. Yes." Well done, Bristow, he tells himself. Took her a grand total of ten minutes to get you naked. "Everything's great."

Instead of leaving, she leans against the sink. "I thought washing your clothes might alter your appearance too much. But I thought I'd at least give them a good airing out."

"Sounds like a plan." Jack wonders just what kind of a plan now has his clothes outside the boat while he's still in it. But his initial unease is changing into a not-unpleasant mixture of curiosity and amusement. How far will Katya take this? He might as well know.

It also would be a good idea to find out how far he'll take this.

"How is Sydney?" Katya says.

"She's fine. Thank you." They both know the gratitude is not for the courtesy of the question, but for Katya's role in Sydney's continued survival. "After she returned, she was shaken, understandably. But I think she's all right now."

"You say that as if you didn't wholly believe it."

He says only, "She's having a rough year." Here, at least, he finds one boundary between him and Katya; talking about Sydney's deeper emotions feels natural with Irina, but with Katya, it would be a violation of Sydney's privacy. This is solid stone amid all the drifting sand, and he is grateful for it.

Perhaps Katya is as well, because she doesn't pry. "I hope we'll meet someday. I should like to know my eldest niece."

So Elena has children too. Jack mentally files this away for future reference. "I think Sydney would like that too. Are you able to travel freely in the U.S.?" He begins soaping up, wholly conscious of the direction of his hands, of the parts of his body the motion is outlining for Katya: his shoulders, his arms.

"What a tactful way of asking if there are warrants for my arrest! But then, didn't you find that out for yourself?"

Jack feels the cool spray of water against his skin, feels the soap-slippery hair of his chest between his fingers as he lathers. "I know that there are no outstanding warrants for a 'Yekaterina Derevko.' But I don't know if you've taken a husband's name, or what various aliases you might have."

"Come now. You know one of them, surely."

She's dodged his question handily, so much so that Jack can't fully suppress a smile. "I don't think there are any warrants for 'the Black Sparrow.' Call it a hunch."

Katya laughs. "Ridiculous, isn't it? Irina picked it out. I think she'd been watching old Humphrey Bogart movies that night. Of course, it sounds better in Russian."

"I spent more than a decade of my life as 'Blackbird.' My SD-6 codename. I think Arvin Sloane named me after a Beatles song." His CIA codename suits him better, in his opinion, but he has no intention of telling Katya what that is.

"Probably any names we're given have more dignity than the ones we'd choose for ourselves. Choosing a name would mean revealing something, wouldn't it? Whether we knew it or not." Her voice is softer, as if she's only realizing this herself. "Better by far to accept masks made by others than show our true faces."

Jack considers that for a few moments as he turns to let the water sluice along his back, over his ass, down his legs. The boat shifts slightly in the bay, and he has to brace his hands against the wall to  
remain steady. "What name would you have chosen?"

"Jack. You're asking me to reveal myself. Don't you think that's a little forward?"

"You're talking to a naked man."

The laughter is almost bawdy, this time, and Jack realizes he's mildly embarrassed, as if he'd drawn back the shower door between them. "Turnabout is fair play. Well, then. If I were choosing a name – and as there seems to be an avian motif at work – I would choose 'Magpie.'"

"Not very dramatic," he says, turning his back to her to provide some limited disguise for the fact that his hands have moved lower down his abdomen. Against his better judgment, he adjusts the temperature of the water, making it hot. Steam begins to billow out around him, a better kind of heat than he's known in too long.

"I didn't choose for drama. If I want drama, I have the Black Sparrow," Katya replies. Her voice is slightly muffled, and he realizes she's turned her head from him, allowing him marginally more privacy. Is that consideration for his feelings or a sign of her own? "I chose for truth."

"Tell me about magpies, then." Jack can identify a magpie easily, just as he can ID several thousand species of wildlife. Come to think of it, their jet-silk feathers aren't unlike Katya's hair. But he  
suspects she's referring to different kinds of resemblance.

"You know the rhyme, don't you? About telling your fortune from the magpies you see?" He doesn't; his childhood wasn't the kind that involved much in the way of nursery rhymes. After a moment of his silence, Katya sing-songs: "One for sorrow, two for joy. Three for a girl, four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold. Seven for a secret as yet untold."

Doggerel. "So you tell people's fortunes."

"I prefer to determine them."

Jack smiles as he starts scrubbing the shampoo from his hair; he hadn't realized how good that could feel. "I thought magpies were known for stealing."

He says it without thinking, but the pause that follows his words is a half-second too long. "Magpies take what others leave unattended. Have you ever seen a magpie's nest, Jack?"

For an instant he remembers holding Sydney on his shoulders as she gaped at the sky-blue eggs of a robin nestled in the branches of a backyard tree. The memory is one he hasn't revisited in years; it is startling in its clarity and sweetness. Sometimes Jack thinks he and Sydney buried every good experience they ever shared, then spent years pretending they never happened at all. God knows there are too few of those moments, but maybe he and his daughter are beginning to discover them again. "No. I haven't."

"They're beautiful." Her voice is closer; she's stepped nearer to the semitransparent wall of the shower. Only a few inches of space, thin plastic and steam separate them now, and Jack can make out the  
dark shapes in her face that are her lips, her eyes. "They're not drab little bundles of twigs. A magpie's nest has a door and a roof, and it's woven in with all the wonderful things she's been able to find. Soft fluff and shining wires. Bright cloth. Tinsel. Nothing is ever wasted, not to a magpie. Nothing is ever left behind."

Her words strike at the core of him, as she'd intended them to do. Part of him wants to damn her for saying that out loud; the other part can only think thewords, "left behind," and know their hollow echo.

Jack looks over at Katya again, and even through the distortion of the plastic, he knows their eyes have met. At this moment, at the crossroads of pain and anger and lust, Jack is only seconds from pushing the door aside and taking Katya in his arms. The water flows over his body, and he imagines it as her caresses. He can't name exactly what it is that's driving him, if it's revenge against Katya for taunting him, revenge against Irina for leaving him, comfort for her loneliness, comfort for his own, or just the hard curve of desire to be inside a woman again. He's starting not to care.

He lifts his hand to the shower wall. Her hand, a dusky peach shadow, matches his, palm to palm. And then he sees the rind of dried blood beneath his fingernails. Irina's blood.

When Jack jerks his hand away, he sees Katya start, surprised by the motion. Quietly he says, "I need you to go."

Wordlessly, she leaves. Jack remains in the shower until long after the water has turned cold, carefully cleaning out each fingernail, one by one, until the last remnants of blood are gone.

**

Thin bathrobe wrapped around him, Jack emerges from the bathroom with a fair degree of trepidation. He knows he's moving awkwardly, as though he were willing the armor of his suit around him instead of damp terrycloth. Katya is waiting in the bedroom outside, but she doesn't look predatory or angry; instead, her face is genuinely stricken. "I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have done that."

"I shouldn't have encouraged you." Jack sits in the chair next to hers, and when her hand wraps around his, he returns the comradely gesture.

"Life is too rich in complications, don't you think?" she sighs. Businesslike again, she pulls out paper and pen. "The Reyes compound – I need to know every entrance, every stairwell, very pathway. As close to scale as you can manage."

This is all information Jack had memorized by his third hour of masquerade as Ingo Krauss. Quickly, he sketches out what she needs, talks her though the potential dangers, plays up the opportunities. Already Jack has begun mentally tracing the various pathways he will take to the basement to rescue Irina; he's ready to reach her by any route necessary, no matter how far apart they are, no matter what gets in the way.

His accent starts to slip at one point, and Jack forces himself to focus on it, bring it back. He's beginning to feel like himself again, and he can't afford to be himself yet.

For her part, Katya is grimly focused on maximizing the fatalities in Eduardo's compound. Her mischievous smile is absent, her dark eyes set, as she discusses weapons range and shots to the neck. Of course, Jack finds this sort of thing just as attractive as her charm – but they're both thinking of Irina now more than themselves. He tells himself that everything is under control. Jack likes that feeling.

At last she goes to discuss the plans and the map (accurate to scale) with her men, and has his clothes brought in to him. They're still dingy and rumpled, and Jack feels a crawling displeasure in putting them back on his shower-fresh skin. But now, at least, they smell less like smoke and sweat, more like the sea.

He steps out onto the dock as Ingo Krauss again; Katya is waiting there, her air-dried hair frowsy in a few different directions. Jack resists the urge to ruffle it. "I can go back now. Most of them will still be asleep, but the ones who aren't won't be surprised if I show up again now."

"Good." She tilts her head like a watchful bird. It's a habit she and Irina share. "If you can't get to Irina, we're going after her. We won't stop to look for you."

"I won't need it." This is true, because Jack knows the only thing that will stop him from getting to Irina is his death.

Perhaps she sees that in his eyes, because she steps closer, her bare feet padding against the deck. "When we spoke before, about the magpie – we both spoke some truth, there."

"I think so." Jack tries a smile. "You were right. We're better off with the names others choose for us."

She doesn't take the tactful out. "I've taken that which belonged to Irina before. But never before she herself had walked away." Katya is grave as she adds, "Sometimes Irina casts aside the most priceless treasures imaginable – rather than admit she needs them."

It isn't a come-on. It isn't an attack. It IS manipulation -- but it's also a warning, sincere in its way.

"I know," Jack says. And he does, better than anyone, even if he'd never given the thought words before. "I know."

Katya nods and hands him a canvas satchel; Jack knows without asking that the explosives are inside. She says only, "Until tonight, then."

He takes her hand for one moment before he leaves. "Until sundown."


	4. Chapter 4

"You should reconsider," Jack says, shoving Irina's shoulder back with his booted foot. Some of the guards chuckle as she falls back against the wall. "Before – sundown, I think. Don't you think that's long enough, Eduardo?"

"More than long enough." Eduardo's eyes rake over her appraisingly. "You're taking it too easy on her, Ingo."

Sundown, Irina thinks. Katya will be here at nightfall. The game is over so soon.

When Jack leans down toward her, she flinches, making sure not to overdo it. Everyone observing them should believe that she is afraid, but by now they know she is no coward. That's not a role Irina has ever played, or ever intends to.

"I'll come down to you then," Jack says, a cold curl of menace in his voice that gives her chills, though not for the reasons anybody else in the room would ever suspect. His hand grips her chin, puckering her lips, tilting her face up to his. "And then we'll see what you have to say, won't we?"

His skin is soft, freshly washed. He smells like Katya's green soap.

Irina looks up into his eyes, sees everything she needs to see. When Jack pushes her roughly back into her makeshift cell, she barely notices her hard tumble to the ground; she has other things to think about.

The door swings shut behind her, and she can hear both laughter and argument: laughter from the men who enjoy watching a woman be manhandled, and argument from those who would like to abuse her themselves, and more savagely. Briefly Irina imagines the lust swirling from the outside into her cell, thick black smoke that drifts in beneath the door. But Jack can handle them. She has no doubt of that and feels as safe as if she were in her childhood home. No, it's what happens after sundown that concerns her now.

Jack and Katya didn't make love. She'd wager they didn't even kiss. Part of her is overjoyed and relieved to know this; that's the part Irina distrusts most.

On another level entirely, the level Irina has forced herself to operate on for most of her life, she realizes that this just prolongs the suspense. She brought Jack and Katya together for a reason. In a way, their refusal to comply with that purpose is more troubling than anything else. If they were going to have a meaningless fuck – a potential outcome, one for which Irina had already braced herself and planned accordingly – they'd have done it by now.

Outside her cell, voices are quieter. She can hear the low heart-thump of feet on the stairs; Jack's dispelled the danger, taken them upstairs. It is no more than Irina expects, and she stretches out upon the floor, slowly relaxing. She can fold her handcuffed arms behind her head as a kind of pillow. The cement is hard, but it's cool, and now, with the early-afternoon heat at its most searing, she needs that more than anything else.

Jack is – more or less – behaving himself with Katya. Katya has a remarkable tendency to convince men not to behave themselves. Therefore he is either doing this because he has made up his mind to bury his darker side down deep – not get rid of it, because he never could and knows it, but sink it in a cold, deep well, far away from the world -- or because he is still in love with his wife.

The latter possibility both moves and frightens Irina. The former intrigues her. Of course, both could be true.

She wonders how best to get at the truth, then asks herself if she really wants to.

For the moment, she doesn't even want to think. She wants to feel the cool floor beneath her back, and let her mind flow free, and hurry sundown.

**

The car slams into the river, the hardness of metal crashing into the hardness of water. White spray turns into swirling tide, muddy dark, creeping over the hood, lapping at the windshield wipers.

"What do we do?" Jack is in the passenger seat, staring at the floorboard where eddies are beginning to form. Irina feels cold damp creeping into her shoes.

"Breathe in deep," she says. She has talked herself through this over and over in the past few weeks, and so she knows all the other instructions: Let the car fill with water. Unfasten seat belt. Roll down window. Swim to a tire for air. But she can't seem to say those instructions out loud to Jack; a strange immobility has seized her, as surely as the river has seized her car.

They are sinking deeper; the windshield is almost completely covered, and she steals a look at the sliver of twilight sky still visible. It's the last sky Laura Bristow will ever see. The river is rising within the car, faster now, and she must stay calm. She must stay calm. For her daughter's sake she must stay calm.

"We have to get out of here," Jack says. He isn't panicking – her husband doesn't panic – but he's not happy. He looks so young.

"We have to stay. Just for a while. Not forever."

The cold water rushes over her lap, between her legs. The end of Jack's tie begins to float. Outside the car, she can see nothing but the flood she has created, illuminated only by the car's headlights; swirling twigs and bracken are caught in their sepia glare. The tires hit river bottom, and mud clouds up all around them like an octopus' ink.

"Let me get you out of here." Jack puts one hand on the door handle. "I can get you out of here."

"You can't. Nobody can." Irina draws in breath after breath, hyperventilating on purpose, as the cold weight presses against her chest. The green glow of the dashboard shimmers on the water's surface as it goes under – radio, odometer, the still-clicking turn signal. She is shaking from the adrenalin and the chill.

"Please." She almost can't hear him over the rushing water, which is nearly at her ears now. Irina turns her face up to the small, flickering light on the car's roof, the better to get the last gasps of air. The last thing she hears Jack say is, "For Sydney."

Just as the water frames her face, closing up over temples and chin, Irina gasps, "Sydney isn't here –"

Irina surfaces from her dream with a jolt, sucking in air, surprised that it's hot and sweat-thick, instead of cold and musty. Disoriented, she pushes herself up so that she's sitting against the wall. Two bad dreams in as many days – it's time to stop sleeping, at least for a while.

There's shouting outside, and for an instant she wonders if it's sundown and her escape is at hand. But no – it's still too hot, and she wasn't asleep that long. The men are arguing among themselves over trifles. She hates them. My God, how Jack must hate them.

Jack hates these men. She knows Jack's hate, its shape and its thorns. He has used that hate against her, as both his weapon and his shield; perhaps she can use it now.

The bad dream was worth it, because sleep has clarified her mind and her purpose. Adrenalin hits her bloodstream like vodka, like heroin, and Irina feels a grin spreading across her face. Her heartbeat quickens, thumping beneath her chest, in her wrists, along the column of her throat. It feels good to have a plan, to have something to do besides sit and wait. It feels very good.

She pulls one strap of her tank top down her shoulder, revealing the angle of neck and collarbone. Running her hands through her hair, she draws in a breath, then slams her fist against the door with all her strength. Beyond the glass panel, the guards jump and stare at her. Their eyes charge with a strange heat. Irina feels a jolt of fear – she wouldn't be human if she didn't – but she knows how to use fear as fuel. This is what she needs. What Jack needs, too, even if he'll never admit it. She'll have to show him.

In an instant, her face is a mask of terror. They know she is no coward, but panic they will believe. "Let me out!" she cries, first in Swedish and then in heavily accented Spanish. There's no point in letting them guess where she's from, even if this will all be over soon. "Let me out! I can't – the walls – I can't! Please, please, please –"

Irina hates begging, even as part of a masquerade. She'll have to do more before this is all over, though some promises to be more enjoyable.

Claustrophobia isn't one of her vulnerabilities, but Irina knows what it looks like. She paws at the glass, clutches at the doorknob and thrashes as she tries to pull it free from the lock. Although her peripheral vision reveals motion as the guards get closer, she doesn't allow herself to notice them. Right now, she can know nothing but these four walls pressing in on her; it's easy to pretend that they frighten her, that they pen her in, shut her away.

They pull the door open and she stumbles out, falling to her knees as if in relief in gratitude. The guards like that. One of them chucks her under the chin, and she jerks her head away, trying to use her tousled hair as a kind of curtain between them.

As she huddles on the floor, trembling in what looks like fear but is actually anticipation, Irina listens to them as they croon to her. One of them, in a dingy yellow wifebeater, tells her she is pretty, that she is not too old to be pretty. Silently she resolves to kill him first. The other brushes along her shoulder with the muzzle of his gun, no doubt thinking, as all such stupid men must think, that he is the first to conceive of this maneuver, with its clumsy, banal suggestiveness. The gun slides the other strap of her top along her shoulder, baring more skin.

Irina says nothing, just gulps in a few deep breaths and tries to crawl back toward the cell. The guards will have nothing of it; she's done what she set out to do. One of them pushes her back roughly, and she lets the force of it carry her to the floor as she shrieks.

Will Jack have heard that scream? Perhaps. If not, others will.

She scrambles backward, crablike, as the guards laugh and close in on her. By the time she's backed herself into a corner, they're thoroughly enjoying themselves, the teeth of their leering grins brilliant in the afternoon shadows. Irina tries to curl into a protective ball; that's what they'll expect.

Other men are crowding into the room now, eager to see what they're sure will happen next. The audience is larger than Irina had anticipated; seeing so many lustful faces surrounding her brings her excitement to a higher pitch, and by now she can feel her pulse along every inch of her body.

Eduardo comes in, his scowl disapproving at first. But as he sees her trembling on the floor, his face shifts into something altogether more dangerous. "What's she doing out of her cell?"

"She wanted out," one of the guards says with a shrug. "She wanted out real bad. I figure she can earn herself some time out."

"That's not your call to make," Eduardo says, glaring at the guard. "It's mine."

"I'll go back, I'll go back, I'll go back," Irina whispers, keeping the Swedish accent thick.

"Yeah, you will." Eduardo looks at her appraisingly. "In a while." He steps closer, and Irina feels the combined dismay and arousal of the guards; they know now that they won't get her first, that they might not get her at all, but they don't mind the prospect of watching.

And now, finally, Jack comes in the room. He must've been on the far side of the compound, not to make it until now. No matter. He's right on time.

"What's going on?" Jack's voice is as cold and flat as his expression.

Eduardo doesn't respond directly to the question. "I told you, you were taking it too easy on her." He casts an appraising look at Irina's breasts, and she takes a deep, heaving breath, as if in panic. "She's my prisoner. I make the rules – unless you have a problem with it."

Jack's eyes meet hers for half a second. All he wants to know is whether or not she engineered this. Irina watches his eyes change as he gets his answer.

The others are not so perceptive, though. So Irina still has some acting left to do.

"Not him," she whispers, a whisper calculated to resound throughout the room. Her face twists in revulsion and terror of Ingo Krauss, the man who has already beaten her in front of all these men. "Not HIM. Anyone – anyone but him –"

The guards all laugh. Jack knows his cue. He steps forward, a pace or two ahead of Eduardo. He says only, "Will you let this woman give you orders?"

"No." Eduardo's disappointment is reframed, put in terms of a balance of power, and now he is happy to grin at Jack. "She doesn't give the orders around here."

Jack comes even closer, kneels by her side. When his hand grips her chin this time, she cries out – a small, helpless sound that must arouse the men surrounding her. Probably it arouses Jack too, for all that he knows it's a lie. His expression is dark as he studies her. "Not me? What is it you don't think I should do?"

Irina is shivering now. Jack is so close, so close. She can see the haunted look in his eyes; he doesn't want it to be like this. He knows that she is calling to the darkness inside him, and he doesn't want to answer.

But he will. To save her, he will.

She jerks away from him, and he slaps her, hard enough to be convincing. The pain makes her skin tingle, and when she looks up at Jack, she is seeing him through heat-glazed eyes. The rumpled clothes and the thick scent of sweat are gone; she sees only his broad shoulders, his big hands, the hard, hot look in his eyes as his fist closes around her forearm. "Can't you speak?"

Eduardo says only, "If you don't want her –"

"I do," Jack replies, his gaze never leaving hers. "She's mine."

Jack's hand is in her hair, jerking her up, and she screams as if in terror. When his mouth closes over hers, she tries to pull away, both for show and because it feels so good to have Jack force her to him, to kiss her so savagely. Her teeth cut into her own lips, and she can hear all the men laughing, and the kiss flows into her like wine.

When she pushes back against him, he shoves her into the wall, then begins dragging her back toward her cell. Who is it he wants privacy for? He may think she wants it, but he's the one who needs it. Irina doesn't care. They'll all be watching through the glass, and the idea is making her hot and slick between her legs. As Jack will, no doubt, discover shortly.

He throws her into the room, slams the door shut behind them. As she'd guessed, the guards' faces are instantly pressed up against the glass; their breath creates little clouds of steam. Eduardo is in the very center, and his eyes are so piercing Irina is almost surprised the glass doesn't shatter. This might have happened without her planning, if he'd had any longer to think about it.

Jack must be acutely aware of their audience, but he does not acknowledge them. He pushes her shoulders back on the cold concrete floor, then pulls her handcuffed arms above her head. In Russian – a language no one outside will speak – he mutters, "What the hell have you done?"

In the same language, just as quietly, she replies, "Shut up and fuck me."

He roughly pulls up her tank top, the sweaty cotton peeling away from her skin so that the air almost feels cool about her nakedness. When her bare breasts are exposed, she hears groans outside, sees the flash of lust in Jack's eyes in the moment before he dips his mouth to her.

His tongue is hot and wet against her nipple, and it takes all Irina's self-control not to cry out in transparent joy. Instead, she forces her face into a contortion that could be shame or panic. Irina tries to wriggle away from him, but he shoves her down again and nips at one breast with his teeth. He doesn't bite hard – he bites just hard enough -- but she writhes as if in pain.

Jack makes a sound deep in the back of his throat. He doesn't want to enjoy this, but it's too late. He does.

They are shouting outside, beating on the door, cheering him on. Does Jack like that too? Impossible to say. He keeps working on her breasts – sucking here, biting there, teasing and hurting and all of it good – and she keeps twisting beneath him, creating the illusion that this is against her will, that this is about her humiliation instead of her pleasure.

He's not being rough enough with her, though, at least not yet. She'll have to change that. She wants him to be rough with her. To be with Jack again, she's willing to bleed.

Irina tries to bring her handcuffed arms down to push him away, and he pushes her back brutally. His face is hard as he rises to his feet, then tows her up so that her face is at his waist. "You know what I want," he says, loud enough for them to hear outside. "Do it well enough and maybe I'll let you go."

Oh, no. Irina forces tears to her eyes as Jack unzips; he has half-turned from the window so that they have a sliver of privacy, one wide enough for her to fake this if she chooses. She will not choose. And Jack will not let her go.

Her hands shaking, Irina takes Jack's cock from his pants, trying to act as though this is unfamiliar and unwelcome to her. But he's hard for her, and it's been too damn long, and the feel of his heartbeat through the thin skin against her palms makes her head reel. When Jack's hands clamp across the back of her head and tow her closer, she obediently opens her mouth and takes him inside.

Jack groans. His head is soft against the roof of her mouth, and she can taste the salt of him against her tongue. Irina wants to deep-throat him, take him in as far as she can bear and hear him shout, but that would give away too much to their observers – who are hush-silent now, each lost in his individual lust.

Each of those men is imagining her mouth on him, the way she'd blow them, how it would feel. None of them will ever know. This is for Jack. Only for Jack.

She traces slow, lazy circles around the head of his cock with her tongue, teasing the ridge, the cleft. Jack begins thrusting into her mouth – not too hard, for the purposes of their ruse not really hard enough – but she jerks her head back as though the motion is savage. As she starts sucking, Jack's hands tense against her scalp, each finger pressing hard against her head.

God, he tastes good. He fills her mouth so completely; the curve and angle of him are so right. Irina would know him in the dark.

When Jack tenses slightly, she knows he's planning on faking an orgasm – naturally, it wouldn't fool her for a moment, but it would work for the others outside. They can see only his movement, only the back-and-forth swaying of her hair as her head jerks. He means to leave it at that; this is his twisted idea of chivalry. But Irina's pulse is pounding inside her cunt, begging for him, and she will be damned if she's going to let him walk away this simply.

Irina pushes herself away, as if trying to escape. Her lips are still slick from him as she topples backward ungracefully, unable to catch herself with the cuffs binding her wrists. As she falls to the ground, the spell of silence on the men watching them breaks; they begin shouting, cheering, pounding on the door. They think she's trying to get away. They don't want her to get away. They want her to get fucked. Though none of them guess it, Irina agrees completely.

She risks a glance straight at Jack's face; his expression is drawn, even pained. He wants her – not that there was any doubt of that, even before she got her mouth around his cock – but this isn't the way he wanted it to happen.

But behind that hurt, she sees the dark and twisting shadow of want, of need. Jack is beginning to let himself enjoy this completely. He dreads that, and he craves it, and it's all mixed in together in his bloodstream like a drug. Irina imagines herself shoving the needle into his vein, watching his eyes dilate as the fix takes him over. That's right, she thinks. Take what you want. Take what we need.

Jack grabs the chain that connects the handcuffs and tows her to her feet; they are face-to-face for one second before he shoves her face-down onto the metal table in the corner. The steel is cold against her exposed breasts, but that just makes her shiver deliciously. When Jack begins tugging at her pants, pulling them away, her trembling becomes uncontrollable. The men outside no doubt take it for fear. It is anticipation. It is desire.

The edge of the table presses against her in just the right place. This position – bent over, with a hard surface beneath her belly – is the one way she's ever been able to climax without any other stimulation. Her thoughtful Jack. He remembered.

Jack's hands cup the curves of her ass, dip between her thighs, force her legs apart. She doesn't have to speak Spanish to understand the shouts from outside now, the things they want him to do, the things he will do. Two of Jack's fingers dip inside her first, testing her readiness so that the others cannot see. When he groans, she knows that the heat and wetness he found waiting for him have pushed him over the edge. Where they are doesn't matter anymore; neither do the fools watching them. This is him, and this is her, and the darkness inside him is nothing but the force that has brought them together.

He rams into her in one hard thrust. Irina cries out, not faking it, wholly taken in the feel of his body inside hers. Jack slides almost all the way out, taking it slow, then shoves back into her again, even harder this time. It takes all Irina's self-control not to move with him, to make it even rougher. She must lie there and take it.

One of his hands is at her waist. The other clamps around the back of her neck, as if forcing her down. The pressure is real. The slam of his body against hers is real. Jack is driving at her now, going hard, getting faster.

Irina wanted to set this darkness free, and now she has. Has he ever imagined taking her by force, making her pay for all the things she did to him? In the dark of night, one hand around his cock, his eyes screwed shut so that her face shone behind his eyelids? As Jack thrusts into her harder, then harder again, Irina knows he has. He is living that fantasy now. She has given this to him.

For her, the juxtaposition of power and powerlessness is beyond intoxicating. Irina lets herself scream now, lets the pressure between her legs build and build. She tries to brace her body with her cuffed hands to provide some kind of resistance. But Jack is too hard, pounding into her, harder and faster all the time.

Her skin is flushing hot – how can it be hotter? – and the men outside are howling in something that is half-drunkenness, half-hatred. Jack keeps bearing down on her, making no sound. But she can feel the sweat between his hand and her neck, and she knows it isn't wholly her own.

Then he shifts slightly – changing the angle just a touch – and Irina can't think about him, about the men, about anything at all. She can only feel Jack, filling her up, moving the way she needs him to move as she gets tighter and tighter and –

Irina comes, biting down on her lip so hard she tastes blood. The shiver that passes through her body makes Jack's breath catch in his throat; one more long slide into her and he's over the edge, shouting out one guttural curse as he empties into her. The warmth of him slips down her quivering thighs, and for one moment, Irina thinks she might pass out or cry. Maybe both.

Jack pulls away from her and pushes her down onto the floor. The men outside beat on the walls and door, at least the ones who haven't wandered away to jack off. They want her now, but when Jack looks over at them – Irina doesn't have to see the expression on his face. They turn pale and pull away. Irina is the property of Ingo Krauss, for now.

When their eyes meet, he looks stricken. He forgot himself; everything that happened at the end wasn't an act. Delighted to realize it, and still breathing hard from the aftershock of her orgasm, Irina lets the smile she can't show flicker just behind her face. He'll be able to read it. He always could.

He relaxes slightly, though the sight of her sprawled on the floor, his come on her thighs, is clearly still disturbing to him. "You'll stay inside this time, won't you?" he says. That accent he's affecting is going to be a turn-on for the rest of her life, Irina thinks. "Or you'll have to be punished again. Next time, it won't just be the two of us. We'll have company. How would you like that?"

Irina drops her head as she shimmies back into her pants, tugs down her tank top in a semblance of shame. Jack waits for no other reply, just tucks himself back into his clothing and goes out the door with a slam.

He doesn't order the others to stay away from her. He doesn't have to. Whatever authority he has in this compound goes that far. Irina's not sure how long his order would stand – but certainly it will last until sundown. Can't be more than an hour or two, now.

She curls on a ball in the floor, as if to weep. Her pulse thrums pleasantly between her legs; her nipples are still sensitive against the cotton of her shirt, still slightly wet from Jack's mouth.

Sleep isn't the only way of killing time, she thinks, and against her forearm her lips curve in a smile.


	5. Chapter 5

Jack is taking his second shower of the day.

The first one, the one with Katya standing nearby, was enjoyable in ways both complex and simple; now, he scrubs so harshly that his skin is becoming raw. The aftermath of passion is still on him, and he both revels in it and despises himself for it.

He didn't force her. He would never force her, or anyone. Irina wanted him, wanted him so badly that even the memory of the look in her eyes makes him shake, and the whole damn setup was her idea. But for a few minutes, Jack knew a pleasure he'd never known before – darker and more brutal than he'd known he possessed. And he is not unacquainted with his own brutality.

That, too, would've been Irina's idea. Jack closes his eyes and would lean his head against the shower wall if it weren't revoltingly mildewed. He still cannot predict Irina's quicksilver mind, but he has become exceedingly good at interpreting the tracks she leaves behind. So he doesn't know why she wanted to show him this within himself, only that she did.

Holding his wet hands to his face, Jack breathes in deeply. Maybe he should just accept that he liked it, that she liked it, and that it's over. Easy to say, difficult to do.

And he would at least have thought that having sex with Irina again – having sex with anyone again after a year and a half of total deprivation – would have sated some of the desire that's been boiling inside him. But he remembers the taste of Irina's breast in his mouth, the feel of her fingertips on his cock, and knows that he needs her even worse than before.

Dammit. Jack puts his face beneath the shower nozzle and lets the water pound on his cheeks and eyelids. It's getting colder and it helps him focus.

After all, he only has about an hour to plant explosives.

**

Eduardo's men laugh and grin and smile in his direction as he makes his way around the compound. Even the ones who hated him – many of them – seem to like him now. He's finally behaved in a way they understand. Their oily glee makes it that much easier for Jack to slip the last C4 charge into a crevice on a far wall and set the remote detonator.

He runs into Eduardo shortly after that. Eduardo's heavy-lidded eyes are still jealous. "Bet you wish you hadn't taken it so easy on her yesterday, huh, Ingo? Knowing you had all that waiting for you."

"She's a woman." Jack shrugs, the slightest motion he's sure Eduardo will perceive. "Better than the whores you brought here, but still – just a woman."

"I could do something with that." Eduardo isn't asking permission; his pride wouldn't allow it. But he is making his intentions clear.

"Tonight, perhaps," Jack says. "After dark. We'll question her together, you and I."

Eduardo's smile is slow and fluid. He has no idea that by nightfall, he'll be dead – or Jack will. Right now, he's enjoying the thought of raping Jack's wife, and Jack imagines the far wall collapsing on top of Eduardo, burying his worthless corpse in rubble.

Or slicing his throat open with whatever sharp object might come to mind.

Or, if Jack gets even more pissed off and Eduardo gets even more unlucky, just leaving him for Irina to deal with.

Jack returns the smile and heads to the side of the compound farthest from the explosives, and closer to Irina.

**

A tropical bird perches not far from the window where Jack is waiting. Its brilliant plumage matches the sunset – purple and red and gold. Almost without recognizing what he's doing, Jack shoos it, and it flutters off in a burst of color like confetti.

Any moment now. Any moment. If Katya's coming, she should be here any moment. Really, she should've been here by now, but Jack's not going to worry about that, not until it gets dark – until it gets darker –

Just as the horizon glimpsed through the branches becomes really dark, just as he starts to give up, Jack hears it: a rat-tat-tat that's not as loud as he was expecting. But then, it never is.

A shout. Another shot. The first skirmish.

Jack takes the detonator from his pocket, braces himself against an internal wall and presses down.

The explosion is vibration first – so hard it makes him stumble – then a roar of sound – then a rush of hot air and dust that sprays around him and makes him choke. As he pulls his shirt over his mouth, the floor tilts violently beneath his feet.

He realizes that the compound was more shoddily built than he'd thought – and he hadn't given it that much credit to start with. That means he has to get to Irina immediately, or Eduardo's men won't have a chance to kill her before she's buried alive.

As fast as he can, with the walls trembling around him, Jack gets down the stairs. Windowpanes are shattering, men cursing, guns firing – the cacophony would drown out Irina's voice, if she were calling to him. But Jack suspects that, even now, she's not calling for him.

When he bursts into the basement, Irina's already out. They must have pulled her from her makeshift cell to try and get away with her as a captive, but she's already made it clear that she won't be cooperating. One of the guards is laid out on the floor in a sprawl. The other, a man in a mustard-yellow shirt, is fighting with her now. Jack winces as the man's fist swings toward Irina's head, but she ducks it handily, then slams her cuffed fists into his gut.

Jack wants to call her name, but he knows better than to distract her during a fight. Instead he just goes for his gun.

The remaining guard lunges at her, and Irina dodges that too – but she stumbles back, losing her balance for just a moment. Jack aims at the yellow shirt and fires. His target explodes in blood and falls backward.

Irina stares at the body, then whirls around, furious. "That one was MINE."

"You're welcome."

Another guard appears – one of the younger ones, eyes crazed with both fear and a kind of bloodthirsty exhilaration. This one has hated Ingo Krauss from the beginning, and when he sees his enemy and the prisoner standing together over two of his dead comrades, he goes for his gun. Jack wheels toward him, but Irina is even faster; in a flash, she elbows the man in the throat. As he gags for breath, she gets her cuffed hands around his neck and snaps it with an audible crack. The corpse tumbles to the ground, and Irina grins at her handiwork.

Honestly, Jack says to himself, I used to think about this woman when they played "Annie's Song" on the radio.

"Where's Katya?" she says.

"We'd better find out. I wouldn't count on the compound being intact in five minutes." Eduardo Reyes hasn't shown his face during the attack, and that concerns Jack; he owes it to the CIA to either bring Reyes in or make sure he's dead. But right now, he owes it to Irina and Katya to put their safety first. Reyes can wait.

They don't bother trying to unfasten Irina's cuffs. Instead, they just run up the steps and into the dirt lot outside. The vehicles that belonged to this compound are all on fire, and he hopes like hell they don't have full tanks. Irina runs straight toward a van near the far end of the lot, and Jack follows her.

Just as they reach it, the side door slides open, and Katya smiles at them. "There you two are," she says, as if they were late for brunch.

Irina pulls herself in, and Jack follows, slamming the door behind him. He doesn't look back, but as the driver pulls away, he can see the orange flames of the compound lighting up the night.

**

The trip back to the Lastochka is mostly taken up with picking the lock on Irina's cuffs and various radio calls to the men still finishing up the compound's destruction. They don't spot Reyes, but everything else goes well, and by the time the lights of Rivas trace the shape of the shoreline, Irina's hands are free. Her wrists are slightly raw, but she grins as she rubs the sore places, as though she relishes the prospect of scars.

Jack is shown to a stateroom – not Katya's. A quick check of drawers and shelves reveals that it's not Irina's either, just his own. The message is that he is to wait for Irina's cue, and Jack wonders when, precisely, he's ever been at liberty to do anything else. But the rancor that would once have accompanied that sentiment is gone.

Some, but not all. He can deal with the rest later. For now, he takes his third shower of the day.

When Jack emerges, fresh clothing is waiting for him – a couple of loose linen shirts and khaki slacks that appear to be in the right sizes, as well as a pair of sandals he'd wear right around the time hell froze over. After consideration, he elects to remain barefoot.

He strolls out onto the deck to find Irina and Katya sitting on low chairs, sipping red wine. They're each wearing loose cotton dresses in brilliant local prints – going native. Irina smiles at him and holds up her glass, as if in a toast. "Chateau Rothschild '79?"

Jack holds out his hand, and Irina pours from the decanter. To Katya he says, "Thanks for the clothes."

"You certainly needed them," she says briskly.

For the first time, it hits him that that the conflict between his love for Irina and his desire for Katya should be a problem now. Instead, being here – with both sisters easy and relaxed, smiles on both their faces as they look at him and each other – makes his inner confusion seem stupid and juvenile.

Irina knows everything. She always does. If it were going to be a problem, it would be by now. Maybe just being with them both sets everything right. Maybe making love with Irina tonight (and he cannot imagine that she won't come to him, or bring himself to call what happened earlier today "making love") will finally break the fever that's possessed his mind for months.

(And then he won't have to think about this morning, about what happened there, what it means for him, for them --)

At any rate, the company he's keeping has changed for the better.

"We picked up our chef in New Orleans," Irina informs him as she hands him his glass. "How does some file gumbo sound?"

"Perfect." He lifts the wine to his face, breathes in a scent so rich and thick that it seems to curl at the back of his tongue.

"Some people," Katya says with a teasing, sidelong glance at her sister, "think carrying a wine cellar aboard a freighter is an unnecessary indulgence."

Irina rolls her eyes. "Imagine that."

"If you think I'm going to take sides with file gumbo and excellent wine at stake, you're quite mistaken," Jack says. He sips the Chateau Rothschild and discovers the flavor is the scent, only more powerful.

"That's my wise Jack," Irina says, patting his forearm, the touch hot as fire. "Choosing between goddesses never goes well."

"Not for the mortals, no." Jack steps between the chairs and offers each of them an arm. "Let's eat."

Dinner goes well. The gumbo is good, the wine better, and there's fresh bread to dunk in the spicy sauce. They get on the subject of favorite meals of childhood (Jack hasn't thought of his mother's French toast in at least 20 years), which makes Irina and Katya start reminiscing. They tell him about Leningrad, about the cramped little apartment they shared with their parents and grandparents and Elena. Each insists that the other was the more incorrigible child, and backs it up with evidence: Irina rolling her skirts up from her knees to mid-thigh at age 13, Katya brazenly stealing a lipstick from the handbag of a visiting diplomat's wife. Half of the fun is comparing these trivial crimes with what they get away with now.

"You must have some adventures of your own to share," Katya insists. "Girls you sneaked upstairs late at night. Or cigarettes in the backyard, perhaps?"

Jack's father died when he was 5, his mother when he was 7. The rest of his childhood was spent on the farm of a distant relative with teenage sons, all of them as silent and weathered as old railroad ties. His primary memory of being young is of doing chores. "When I was 15, I stole a bottle of Jack Daniels and nursed it for about a month before I was caught. I drank maybe a shot a week. Thought I was a rebel."

Katya laughs; Irina doesn't. Of course, Irina remembers the story from the days when he told his girlfriend Laura why he had no family. At the time he thought that was something they shared. His wife strokes his shoulder, and her smile is unusually soft.

Jack realizes that they've never had a night like this – without the grief or pain of Sydney's supposed death outweighing everything else, without the lie of Laura Bristow shielding Irina's true self. This is the first time they've ever been able to just sit and talk and laugh, like normal lovers do. Of course, "normal" is a relative term.

It's never been like this before. Tonight – when they're together – it will be unlike any other night. His love for Irina fills him with a kind of quiet jubilation, and when their eyes meet, he wills her to see that he understands this. She must understand it already. She would.

The incident this afternoon could have been a thousand years ago. Jack wants it to remain that way. Maybe, tonight, when Irina comes to him, he'll forget about it entirely.

He still lets his gaze linger on Katya from time to time; he finds her as beautiful as he ever did, and what man wouldn't? But, as he'd hoped, being with the two of them together is beginning to set things in order in his mind. What he feels for Katya is infatuation – a pleasant glow that warms their conversation and lights their eyes. But placed next to his love for Irina, freed from the viselike grip of need that had caged him, that attraction takes on its proper perspective. Jack senses that Katya sees this, understands and doesn't resent them for it.

In other words, everything is going perfectly. Jack distrusts this feeling, as a rule. Yet tonight – Pacific breeze blowing through the portholes, the wine soft on his tongue, Irina's hair burnished copper in the light of the hurricane lamp – he's willing to let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, all is as it seems.

It takes only another 15 minutes for this belief to bite him in the ass.

When dinner's been cleared away and they're each finishing off a second glass of wine, they stroll out to the deck. Jack sits in a low bench that offers a view of the Pacific, hoping Irina will sit by him. "How long will you remained docked here?" he says.

Irina shrugs, then gestures Katya to the bench. Katya's expression is odd for a moment, but she takes her place by his side. "Depends," Irina says. "How long will you stay?"

He's already calculated this; it's not nearly as long as he'd like, but it's more time than he'd ever thought they'd have just a couple days ago. "I should make contact with the CIA late tomorrow afternoon. I'll report on an attack at the Reyes compound, say that I escaped and hid out until now. It would help if you'd leave their weapons caches alone."

It's Katya who replies. "We don't need them." She is studying Irina, her eyes intent. The wind has shifted now, and blows toward the sea.

"You won't report me," Irina says. It's not an order; he needs the secrecy as much as she does. "Will you mention Katya?"

"I didn't before, even to people who would have thanked her," Jack says, with a nod in Katya's direction. She smiles in reply, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Something has begun to weave between them now – tension, though not necessarily of a bad kind. Jack's not sure yet. "Seems like a bad time to begin."

Irina says. "That depends on the beginning." She turns around, and the fire of challenge is in her eyes. "I heard you two hit it off."

"We did." Jack has been prepared for this; he doesn't expect Irina to overreact, but he expected her to react. But why is she doing this now? Why is she drawing in Katya just at the moment when the two of them should be leaving together?

"I always thought you were a good kisser, but it's nice to have independent confirmation." Irina is studying Katya's face now.

Katya smiles, and there's none of the defensiveness Jack would've expected. "Think of the oafs you could've been given to, Irina. How lucky you were." She turns to gaze at Jack then, allowing no doubt as to the sincerity of her appreciation.

Irina steps just a little closer. She's pushing him now – daring him – though to what, he doesn't yet know. "What about Katya?" she says. "What did you think of her?"

"She's a beautiful woman." Does she honestly think this interrogation's going to shake him? Irina's got more sense than that.

She shrugs, just a little. "Forgive me. I'm not jealous. I'm – curious. What was it like, when you kissed? I'd like to know."

Irina's not jealous. But she's not curious. She's trying to rattle him, God knows why. Usually she can do that without even trying.

Jack decides – not tonight. No, for once, he's going to beat Irina at her own game.

"It was a lot like this," Jack says, sliding one hand around Katya's waist as the other brushes her cheek. For a split second, she simply stares – then leans toward him. Their mouths meet, and the kiss is exactly like the one they shared before: just as intense, just as passionate, just as surprising. The knowledge that Irina is watching only amplifies his excitement.

Maybe she'll be furious. Jack would love to make her furious – to know he'd thrown her off her game, even for a moment. Maybe she'll be hurt, and he knows down deep that sometimes he thinks it would be worth it, just to know that he could affect her that much. And then Katya's mouth opens wider beneath his, and for a moment he can only think of her.

When they pull apart, Jack sits back and raises an eyebrow at Irina. She has watched them, lips parted slightly, body still. But as he studies her, he realizes she's not upset. She's not angry.

Irina's turned on.

(Sydney has a phrase that has always driven Jack mad: "We're in a weird area." It's imprecise, and it describes nothing, and so he doesn't like it when his daughter says that. But now he knows, at last, what that phrase means – this is the weird area, and he has just arrived in it.)

He says the first thing that comes into his very confused mind: "I didn't think you were into watching."

Irina shrugs. Her smile is slow and predatory, and the night's heat seems to have sunk into his very skin. "I never imagined that – watching you. But I liked it."

He looks at Katya then; the only thing he's sure of is that Katya's not nearly as surprised as he would've thought. Her eyes lock with his, but it's her sister she speaks to. "You remember our soldier, don't you, Irina?"

That low laugh of Irina's, the aroused light in her eyes – Jack remembers that so well. "You're one step ahead of me, Katya."

"Your soldier?" Jack can't decide if he doesn't want to know this story or if he wants to know it far too much.

Irina's broad hands settle on his shoulders, kneading the tired muscles there. Just her touch makes Jack shudder, but it's Katya's hands he's holding, Katya's fingers he grasps tighter. Irina whispers, "We were girls. I'd only just entered university. One night – he was handsome, and we'd all had a lot to drink --"

"We both liked him," Katya continues as Irina laughs again. "We nearly fought over him in the bathroom. And then we thought how silly it was to fight."

"He didn't mind our compromise." One of Irina's hands slips into the open collar of his shirt; the feel of her touch on his skin makes his head reel. But she isn't offering herself to him tonight. Irina is simultaneously offering him something far more generous and far more controlling. Jack wants to know what he thinks about this, as long as he can still think straight, which he suspects won't be for much longer. Nearby, a boat rings a bell, the sound of it echoing with the waves.

He lifts Irina's wrist to his mouth and kisses it. She murmurs something wordless as she presses her lips against the side of his neck. Katya's eyes are hungry as she watches them, but she's still smiling, still caressing his hand. Amazing, how sexy that is – just the brush of fingertip on fingertip.

Jack envisions their soldier, 30 years ago, and feels an irrational stab of jealousy. But it fuels the slow fire building inside him. "I'm sure he didn't mind," he says, surprised to hear how low and rough his voice has become.

"What about you, Jack?" Irina's breath is warm against his ear. "Would you mind?"

What is it Irina wants from this? How does this work to her advantage? All Jack knows is that she's calling his bluff -- and that means he's going to call hers.

Jack turns and captures her mouth with his, kissing her deeply. As soon as their lips part, he turns to Katya and kisses her with equal hunger. Irina groans as she runs her fingernails down his back, just hard enough for him to know what she could really do if she tried. "Now," he whispers against Katya's cheek.

It's Katya who pulls away from their entanglement; her pale cheeks are flushed, and she looks almost girlish for a moment. "My stateroom," she says, holding out a hand to each of them.

"Why your room?" Irina's pique is comically childish – she's grinning, and Jack halfway expects her to stamp her foot. But the question is serious, as Katya probably knows.

Katya just laughs. "This is my ship, remember? That means I have the biggest bed."

**

None of it seems real – Jack feels as though he's drunk, or high, or delirious from the unending heat. But it is real, all of it. The curve of Irina's arms as she unties the black ribbon from her hair. Katya's breasts pressing against his back as she reaches around him to unfasten his shirt. The way their hands briefly intertwine as they brush against his cock.

The cotton dresses they're wearing slip off in an instant. They're both naked and sprawling back on the bed while he's still getting out of his trousers. And thank God, because Jack would not have wanted to miss this view: Irina, lean and golden and angular; Katya, smooth and rosy and soft. Only one lamp's light illuminates them, but it's all Jack needs. They are a Modigliani and a Renoir, similar mostly in their perfection. He doesn't know what kind of a figure he can possibly cut beside them, but when he's finally standing naked at the foot of the bed, their eyes are eager, and Irina holds her arms out for him.

"Jack," she whispers, and he goes to her. To them.

Within a few minutes he's learned that the best way to balance between them is not to try to balance – to just go with it, not to think, to obey his body and ignore his mind. One moment he's taking Irina's nipple in his mouth, teasing her gently; the next he's dipping his fingers between Katya's legs, stroking and probing, testing her heat. The sisters help him with this delicate equilibrium, one giving him attention as the other accepts it, pulling and pushing, the moon and the tide.

He wonders, through the haze of need that enfolds him, if they'll love each other – he never imagined sisters doing that, although the mental picture has some appeal. They don't, though. When Katya and Irina touch each other, it's gentle, even sensual, but their pleasure waits for him. Their touches are smaller things – Katya brushing her palm over Irina's forehead as Irina writhes beneath Jack's hand. Irina bracing Katya's back as she arches up, lifting her breasts to Jack's waiting mouth.

Irina is the first to slide down his body, to kiss his belly and the hard bone of his pelvis. When Jack stifles a groan, she gives him a wicked smile and slides off the side of the bed, kneeling to get the best angle. Jack pushes himself up, and Katya's arms slide around his waist, as if she's bracing him.

But when Irina dips her face between his legs, a lock of hair falls against his erection, and she has to brush it out of the way.

"I told you this style has advantages," Katya laughs, and Jack runs one hand over her seal-fur hair. But then she moves away from him and sits on the floor behind Irina, her pale hands in Irina's dark hair as she pulls it back.

"Thanks," Irina murmurs, just before her mouth closes over Jack's cock. The heat of her mouth sears him, as does the sight of Katya, gently braiding Irina's hair the whole time Irina goes down on him. He can't breathe in deeply enough, can't get enough air to fuel his fevered mind.

Just when Irina has him so hard it hurts, just when he's begun thrusting in her mouth with real intent, she pulls away, leaning back against Katya. "My turn," Katya says, hugging her sister.

"I want to watch this," Irina replies, crawling away from Katya to take her place on the bed. Her hair is gathered back in its messy braid, the sexiest Jack has ever seen it.

When Katya's tongue traces up the shaft, Jack breathes out one word, "Yes." It's all he can possibly think or say. Irina begins massaging his shoulders again, working her way down his back while Katya continues her ministrations. Katya does this differently – not better, not worse, just different in the strokes of her tongue and the rhythm of her touch – and the effect on his system is galvanic. Jack cups the side of Katya's face in one hand, reaches behind his back to tangle fingers with Irina with the other. Irina responds by leaning around and kissing him, hard.

Katya gets him in deep, and she sucks just right, and Jack tenses. "Wait," he says, pulling out of her mouth. "We have to wait." There comes a time in a man's life when he has to choose the moment more carefully. Why didn't Irina and Katya make this offer when he was 25?

"We'll wait," Katya murmurs, dropping a wet kiss on the very tip of his cock. "Now I want to watch you."

Jack falls back into the bed, and in an instant Irina is astride him, a few loose strands of her hair falling around his face. Katya curls beside him on the bed, her breasts brushing his arm, and quickly he turns and kisses her. But then Irina lowers herself onto him, and he can't think about Katya, can't think at all, can only close his eyes and thrust into her heat.

They start moving together, finding a rhythm that works instantly. Irina's noisy in bed – so much so that he used to be embarrassed for the neighbors, back in their first apartment with the paper-thin walls. He's always loved that about her. But for some reason the sound of her cries turns him on more tonight than he ever has before. Everything about her – the hard nubs of her nipples beneath his fingers, the catch of her breath, the flush in her cheeks –

And then Jack realizes that it's because of Katya. It's because he has a witness.

What he does to Irina – the way he affects her, the heat they have – it's not just his dream, not his wishful fantasy. He can do this to her, turn her into an animal creature, shameless in her need. How often have others wondered if she was ever in his bed willingly? How often has he been forced to doubt even this?

But now – with Irina shuddering on top of him, gasping in her first orgasm of the night – he knows it's true. Because there's someone else to see it, someone else who knows. And Katya smiles at them both, clearly alive with both envy and anticipation.

Irina pulls away from him, and it's all Jack can do not to groan in disappointment as his cock slips free. But Katya is here, waiting, her arms encircling him as he rolls atop her.

His wife's hand is hot on the back of his neck as he slides one knee between Katya's legs. "Now, Jack – now." In his fever he isn't sure which woman says it, but he's going to obey.

Katya's different than Irina – the angle, the tightness, the way she tilts her hips up to his. For a moment, he just looks down into her face, relishing this first moment. Only now, with Katya's pulse thumping all around him, does Jack realize how badly he was beginning to want this – how much he'd already begun to ask himself not _if_, but _when. _

What is going on Katya's mind? He can feel the trembling in her body, see the punch-drunk delight in her eyes – but beyond that, he can't guess. Is this really what she wants? Jack intends to do his best to see that it is.

They kiss, long and wet, and then he begins to move with her, taking it slow and easy. Irina's hands slide down his back, over his ass, feeling the muscles work as he fucks her sister. When her lips brush against his spine, Jack groans and pushes inside Katya harder.

Katya's head tilts back, and he kisses her neck. She isn't loud, like Irina, but in her own way, her silence is compelling, too. He wants to break her, win one of those rare cries.

When everything becomes too intense with Katya, he pulls free again, and they go on like this for a while – Jack makes love to one, then the other, with his cock or his tongue, depending on how close he thinks he is to coming. Irina seems to enjoy watching more than Katya does; maybe it's just that she makes more noise and lets him know.

But that's one of the reasons it hits him so hard when his mouth's between Katya's legs and she tenses – thigh muscles hard against his hands – and then she cries out, just once, short and sharp. Her clit pulses against his lips, and Jack knows a hot surge of triumph. "Good," he whispers, kissing his way up her belly. "I wanted to hear you."

"Yes," Katya pants. Her short hair is damp with sweat now. "I couldn't – I had to –"

"Shhhhhh." Irina soothes her sister while she reaches around and caresses Jack's cock. "It's all right."

They keep on, Katya coming again when he uses his hand, Irina when he takes her from behind. Jack loses all sense of time, of order, of doubt.

When it happens, it happens suddenly. One moment he's on top of Katya, thrusting hard but thinking he has control – in the next, Katya whimpers softly, and he feels the kick of her orgasm all around him, and then he's lost. Jack grimaces as he tries to pull it back, but he can't, he can't, and he doesn't want to. The world goes white and black and white again, and he hears himself shout out, as though from a great distance, somewhere far away in all the heat.

Jack opens his eyes to see Katya lying beneath him, loose and weak, trembling slightly. Their lips meet briefly, and then he turns to Irina. At first, the look in her eyes takes him back – there's a shadow there that wasn't before, and he wonders if he was supposed to wait, to save that for her. Only at that moment does Jack realize that's what he was doing, until his own body got ahead of him.

But then Irina kisses him, and he can feel her smile. "Don't stop just yet," she murmurs against his lips.

"I won't," he promises. And for another long while they continue, Jack going down on each of them again, making Irina come once more, so hard that she digs her fingernails into his shoulder. Katya enjoys it, but she's spent for the night, just as he is. Irina's last orgasm brings her to the same level of exhaustion, and thank God, because Jack's not sure how much more of this he could survive.

At last they're all sprawled in bed together, Jack in the middle. Everyone's skin is slick with sweat, and now that they're finally still, the sea air can cool them. Katya pulls a sheet over them all, insisting they'll want it later. Jack's too tired to argue.

Katya lays her head on one of his shoulders. Irina doesn't cuddle like that – never has – but she curls alongside him, entangling their fingers. Her skin is so warm.

Their eyes meet, and Jack smiles. It feels more intimate than anything else they've done that entire day. For one instant, he remembers Reyes' compound and what he did to her there; in an instant, it's gone. Those ashes have been scattered and blown away.

Irina closes her eyes and kisses the back of his hand. Jack doesn't even have time to think anything else before he falls asleep.

His dream is soft and indistinct – not a sequence of events, just a few images and a feeling. Jack stands on a riverbank, and there's light on the water, and a soft, warm breeze. Sydney is just a little girl, laughing on the bank. He thought she'd run too far ahead of him, but here she is, close enough for him to reach.


	6. Chapter 6

Irina sleeps, but not deeply. At sunrise she opens her eyes and feels as though she has been awake far longer.

Her palm rests in Jack's. His body is just a few inches away, and his breath flutters her hair across her forehead. The arm across his belly is Katya's.

As Irina has good reason to know, Jack often wakes up when she gets out of bed unless she takes precautions. Carefully, slowly, she slides each leg onto the floor, then stands up. His face doesn't shift; his body doesn't move. One corner of Irina's mouth twitches in amusement, realizing he's probably so tired an erupting volcano wouldn't disturb him.

She tucks the sheet in next to him and stands there for a few moments, naked in the dawn light. Katya and Jack are lying in bed together after making love, oblivious to anything else in the world. Irina takes it in, memorizing every detail – the way Katya's cheek rests against his shoulder, the way Jack's foot overlaps hers. It's important to Irina to know what this looks like; if she already knows, she won't have to torment herself by imagining.

Last night, when this possibility first flickered before her, Irina was genuinely aroused by it – and, she thinks with a lazy smile, her expectations had been more than fulfilled. But she had wanted more than the erotic pleasure. She had wanted a weapon, and now she has won it.

This is the last time she'll see Jack in a while. If the information she's going after is anything other, anything less, than what she's hoping for, it might be the last time she'll see Jack, period. (Although she acknowledges this possibility on an intellectual level, Irina refuses to really believe it. She will find Nadia first. Then she will be the one to tell Jack the truth, the full truth, and he will live without the pain and burden of her knowledge until that day. No other outcome is acceptable.) In any case, Jack and Katya are going to be left to each other's devices for some time to come.

Whatever happens between them now – however many months or years it may be before Irina can return – Irina will know: She started it, she shaped it, she brought it into being. Jack and Katya may be lovers after this or they may not. It doesn't matter. Knowing, as Irina now does, that they will never make love to each other without remembering Irina in bed with them, without knowing their relationship is Irina's creation –

That gives her the control she needs.

Jack shifts slightly, turning his face toward Katya. Normally, he awakens as early as Irina does, but she suspects he'll need his rest for another couple of hours yet. Katya won't be up for at least as long, the lazybones. That gives Irina some time to work. Without looking back, she walks naked through the corridor to her stateroom, showers, gets dressed. In the shower, she snags her fingers in her still-braided hair, but that shakes free in an instant.

**

An hour later, she's sitting in the mess, sipping coffee and reading reports from the days she spent in the Reyes compound when Jack walks in. He is dressed, his hair still wet from his shower, but he still looks a little worn out.

Their eyes meet. He's not sure how to handle this, Irina can tell. But he's smiling as he says, "Good morning."

"Sleep well?" Irina raises an eyebrow, and she doesn't bother disguising her grin.

"Absolutely." Relieved, Jack brushes his hand along her cheek, then leans down for a kiss. Irina closes her eyes, kisses him back deeply. The breeze blows in from the sea, and it's still early enough for the warmth to be welcome. Against her temple, he whispers, "Thank you."

"Just wanted to give you something new," she says, which he will never believe, but is about as much as she intends to discuss it.

Jack's face takes on a very odd cast. Irina experiences an emotion that's rare for her: surprise.

"You _haven't._"

"Well. Once. Once before, I mean."

Irina stares at him. "Tell me."

Jack pours himself coffee. "The early years of SD-6 – they sent us all over the world, constructing the network. I went on as many trips as I could, to get as much information as possible. But a lot of these trips featured – entertainment." He takes a sip and continues reporting. "One night in Japan, the night I met Anthony Geiger, as it happens, the local cell had brought in geishas. Not the traditional women – but courtesans, if that's the word I want."

"It works." Leave it to Jack to worry about his vocabulary when retelling sexual exploits.

"There was this woman with a clubfoot – she was this stunning woman, maybe the most beautiful I've ever seen. Perfect, except for the clubfoot. Geiger ended up with her. I ended up with these two girls, 19 or 20 or so, and they'd put together this role-playing thing for Americans." His forehead creases with annoyance as he pronounces the next word. "Cheerleaders. They had to think I was – happy. I had to make copies of some computer files that night, which was difficult enough without that nonsense."

Irina is shaking with laughter she can't fully suppress. "You make it sound as though you had a terrible time."

Jack just looks more irritated. "It was a logistical nightmare."

At this, Irina laughs out loud, longer and harder than she has in many months. At first, Jack scowls at her, but that makes no difference. She puts her coffee down, her elbows on the table, and her face in her hands. When she next lifts her head, tears are streaming down her cheeks, and Jack sits beside her smiling, somewhat sheepishly.

"It was," he insists, brushing the tears from her cheek with two fingers.

"I believe you." She takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out. "Did you get the job done?" Jack nods. Of course he did. "Last night was better, I hope."

"Much." They share a coffee-flavored kiss, sweet and bitter. For the first time, Irina finds herself counting the hours before he'll have to leave, asking herself if they'll go to bed together again in the brief time they have left. She wants that, and she fears it too.

When their mouths part, she murmurs, "Is Katya awake?"

His smile doesn't change. "Not yet. At least, not when I left." Jack's relaxed and happy, asking no questions about her motivations, or his own. She knows him too well to believe that this is all there is to it; even if he is basking in the afterglow at the moment, eventually, the sturdy analysis of his mind will begin. No matter. She can handle the rest of the morning, assuming Katya awakes in as good a mood.

She remembers Katya last night, the perverse thrill of watching her writhe in pleasure beneath Jack. Throughout their lives, Irina has known Katya to do many things, but never to lose control. But last night, she came close. Katya's heart is the variable here – the element that might seal Irina's fate, one way or the other.

Then Jack takes another sip of his coffee and rubs her arm, almost absent-mindedly. It's the way they spent mornings together for almost ten years, and his unconscious memory of that moves her more than she would have thought. Irina wonders if it won't be Jack's heart that determines their course after all.

Against the hull of the ship, something cracks.

Irina goes still; beside her, Jack does the same. For a few moments, there's nothing – and then another report, louder this time.

Gunfire.

"Reyes," Jack says, on his feet even faster than Irina. "Weapons?"

In an instant she pulls open a side door; there, mixed in with the footstuffs and some cleaning fluids are a few assault rifles, just in case. She throws one to Jack just has they hear the first extended burst of fire, the first shouts from on deck. Katya's team is good, but there's no telling how many men Reyes has brought. "Follow me," she says.

He doesn't argue; he does it, moving along the wall in one corridor as they head toward the deck. When a camouflage-clad figure ducks in, it's Jack's rifle that's slammed into his head. One down. Irina realizes that Katya would still have been asleep when this began, naked and unarmed. The urge to protect her sister is, for a moment, so strong that it almost overrides her good sense. Surprised by the impulse, Irina shoves it aside, continuing to move toward the door, and therefore toward potential escape. Katya can take care of herself.

But just as they reach the outer door – sunlight streaming around its outline, the salt tang of the air sharp – Irina hears a thump in the room behind them. Jack kicks in the door and they wheel in, rifles at the ready. Standing in the center of the room is Eduardo Reyes. He is holding only a pistol, and he doesn't even raise it as he stares at them.

Irina remembers the basement, and Jack's masquerade, and the German accent she's already begun to miss. There are still faint red welts around her wrists. Slowly, she lets the smile spread across her face. "Which one of us did you come looking for?"

"You." Eduardo answers her, as if on autopilot. "Ingo, you – No. You're not Ingo."

Jack doesn't respond to this, but when Irina glances over, she can see the light of challenge in his eyes.

Gunfire echoes on the deck, but Irina recognizes the sound of AK-47s – none of which she saw at the Reyes compound. Eduardo's team is already on the run. She remembers his smug, horsey face as he looked down and planned her rape, and anger gets the better of her. "No, he's not," she says. Jack glances over at her, perhaps startled, but says nothing. "He's my husband."

"Bullshit." Eduardo isn't covering his reaction; he doesn't buy it for a minute.

Irina laughs. "For 33 years now."

"Thirty-four," Jack clarifies. Did she forget an anniversary? Maybe she did.

"You know the key to a good marriage, Eduardo?" Irina takes pleasure in using her real accent, the lowest and hardest pitch of her voice. "Keeping things fresh. Never taking anything for granted. Allowing for the occasional surprise."

Jack gives her a look.

Eduardo doesn't catch it. "You're crazy, and this man you were working with is crazy, and I don't buy your crap for a minute."

Irina says, "I don't care if you –"

The blow catches her in the small of her back, and her knees hit the ground with jolting force as she topples forward. Even as she falls, Irina knows what's happened and damns herself for it. Gloat later, fight now.

She hears, rather than sees, Jack firing at whoever got her; a hot spray across her back is probably her attacker's blood. But when she hits the floor (arms out, catching her weight, already spinning around), Eduardo's boot slams into the side of her head so hard the world goes gray around the edges.

"Put it down!" Jack yells. Irina, awash in a wave of dizziness, can't see anything but the floor, but she knows Jack is talking about Eduardo's pistol, which she'd wager is pointed directly at her head.

Silence. Gasping for breath, Irina can feel herself begin to steady; she doesn't have a concussion. But she's still effectively a hostage, all because she hated this man so much, all because she tried too hard to prove what Jack was to her. A stupid impulse, her second in three days. Jack's proximity does strange things to her mind. She wants to help Jack, but she's not sure she can. Irina's not even sure she can sit upright, assuming Eduardo would allow that to happen. All she's sure of is that Eduardo has not put the pistol down.

Eduardo speaks quietly. "Where did that accent go, huh?"

"Your team's been beaten. You can hear that as well as I do." Jack is calm, reasonable. Irina wonders if he's done hostage negotiation; his words have that practiced sound. "This ends better if you leave now."

"You're not gonna let me leave." Eduardo is not a fool.

"You stand a better chance of it than if you hurt her."

Laughing, Eduardo says, "Holy shit. She is your wife, isn't she? You fuck your wife in front of strangers a lot?"

"Constantly. That's not the subject. Your continued survival is."

"It doesn't have a damned thing to do with survival." Eduardo's voice is becoming loose, unhinged, and for the first time Irina feels fear. "It's about pride, you son of a –"

The shot makes Irina jump, though she knows very well that if she hears it, she's safe. You don't hear a thing when you're really hit – all you know is pain. That's all Eduardo has left as he falls wetly to the ground beside her. His horsey face is gone; it's just so much meat, now.

Irina stares up at Jack. Jack is staring at the doorway. Standing there is Katya, wearing a satin robe and holding a shotgun. She lowers it, and through the smoke her face is unimpressed. "The situation's under control. Irina, are you all right?"

"I think so." When she pushes herself up, her head reels, but that might just be the ship.

"Thank you," Jack says.

"What else is family for? Leave that fool where he lies. The guards will take care of it." Katya stalks off, and Irina would swear that she's mostly angry at having been awoken early.

Jack sinks to his knees beside Irina, taking her face in his hands. "Are you sure you're okay? I saw that kick."

"I am. Or I will be." When he folds her against his chest, she allows it. It feels so good – the illusion of protection, of perfect safety, in a man's arms. She understands why weak women seek it. Irina snuggles into his embrace, and Jack makes a small sound as he pulls her even closer.

For a few moments, Irina knows nothing but him, nothing but the comfort he gives. But then she senses movement and opens her eyes; Katya is standing in the doorway again, and she's still got the shotgun. Irina says only, "Katya?"

"I wanted to know something," Katya says. Does she feel cheated? Used? Or was she playing them both last night, perhaps? Has desire corroded a lifetime's trust? Irina stares at her sister, and she knows Jack is doing the same. After a pause, Katya continues, "Is there any coffee left?"

"Yes." Jack is hesitant; Irina's glad to know she wasn't the only one who had second thoughts. "I think there was – half a pot? Something like that."

"Thank God. I killed the bastards quickly, and they'd deserve much worse if they'd made me miss my coffee." Katya's eyes meet Irina's, and she shakes her head and chuckles as she wanders off. "You two."

Once they're alone, Jack says only, "Is Sydney going to turn out like this?"

"Probably. I'm sorry."

He sighs. "As long as I'm prepared."

**

Irina has to direct Jack to her cabin. He hasn't been there yet.

It's a smaller room than Katya's, a smaller bed. The Lastochka is Katya's, not hers, a fact Irina doesn't mind reminding herself of. Jack helps her to her bed, then rinses out a washcloth for her. "No dizziness? No nausea?" he says.

"I'm better. That wasn't anything." It's more or less true. She'll have some ugly bruises tomorrow, but that's all. Of course, Jack is leaving in a few hours, and she'll have to deal with that pain when it comes. But that's then. This is now.

Jack pushes her back onto the bed and lays the wet washcloth on her forehead. His fear for her is still written on his face – his fear, and his love.

He brushes his fingertips along her cheek, across her lips. Irina kisses them, knowing the impulse for weakness, but she doesn't care. Slowly, he leans down, lowering his mouth to hers. When they kiss, it's gentle, almost tentative. She remembers the first time he ever kissed her, outside the college library, in the rain. A thousand years ago.

Once they've begun kissing, they can't stop. Irina feels something in her resisting this, trying to push away. She's not in control now; she can't define what this means to her, what it is and is not. If only she could get her head together, stop things for just a moment. But Jack's hands are unbuttoning her shirt, and his mouth is moving along her throat, and his body is above hers on the bed, and all Irina can do is hold him close, kiss him back.

This is the way they made love as husband and wife, the way she went to bed with him when she was Laura, they way they haven't been together since. In Panama they'd been too long deprived of one another to be gentle – or anything even close. Then, during the months they'd believed Sydney dead, their lovemaking had been desperate, even brutal: two wounded people trying to convince each other that there was some reason to stay alive. It has been more than twenty years since he whispered her name against her collarbone, since she made love to a man and felt tears springing to her eyes.

"Irina," he whispers as he lets the last of his clothing fall to the floor. It sounds wrong; he should be saying Laura. She wants so badly to believe that his love for her has not changed with the name he uses, but she cannot allow herself to believe it.

She draws her legs up, cradling him between her thighs. Jack kisses her once, softly, before he begins pushing inside her. He takes it slow, so slow it's maddening, and she wants to cry out, to claw at him, to force him to fuck her hard and rough. But oh, God, Irina wants this too. As many years as she has spent telling herself she doesn't want this, she does. Does this frighten him as much as it does her? Irina will never be sure. When at last he's completely within her, in so deep it almost hurts, Irina's eyes lock with his.

The words – _I love you_ – are there, waiting to be spoken. She says nothing. Neither does he.

Jack kisses her again, and then they begin to move – slow and sweet, the way they did when they were young, like the first time they made love after Sydney's birth. It's as if he's afraid she would break. Irina almost wishes she could. But right now, all her fears and longings are going further and further away. All she can feel is Jack thrusting inside her, his belly on hers, her breasts brushing against the hair on his chest. He takes her hands in his, up against the pillow, but he isn't holding her down. He's only holding her hands.

They kiss every moment they aren't moving, and they kiss sometimes when they are; Jack keeps whispering her true name, over and over, as though it were some kind of incantation, as if he could weave a spell that would bind them together forever. Irina pulls her knees up further, trying to get him in even deeper, even though it's impossible.

If only, she thinks. If only I could believe, take it all on faith. If only he could too.

But they aren't like that, and they never will be. In their world, people like that get killed. She and Jack, they endure.

He pushes himself up so that he's above her, so that she can see there their bodies are joined, the base of his cock where it enters her. Irina's hand slides between them, her fingers brushing against his hardness, against hers. She's already so close that it takes just a few strokes – there, and again, and again – and then Irina comes, in slow, gentle waves that ripple through her.

Jack hears the soft moan, sees the change in her face. Two swift thrusts and he's with her, his orgasm rushing into him just as hers ebbs. Irina watches that fleeting expression on his face – that one instant when even Jack Bristow loses control – then pulls him down to her for another kiss.

For a long time they lie together, joined, gasping for breath. His body is heavy atop hers, but Irina doesn't care; she even likes it. She can feel his cock pulse inside her as his arousal fades. Only when he must does Jack pull away and draw her close. "I missed you," he says. "I missed this."

"Me too," she thinks. Thirty-four years. "I did too."

**

As noon approaches, Jack gets dressed and goes to his own room to prepare to leave. Irina garbs herself in different clothes; the ones Jack slipped from her body remain where they were on the floor. The tiny cabin is thick with the scent of sex, and she opens the window to let the sea breeze wash in. It's cooler today; perhaps the heat wave has broken.

When she emerges into the Lastochka's corridors, there's almost no sign that a gunfight took place. There's a bullet hole in the wall – Irina traces it with her finger, paint chips scraping her skin – but the blood's already been washed away. Katya has a good crew.

She goes up onto the deck, right by the gangplank. Either harbor authorities haven't been informed yet of the earlier fracas, or Katya paid them off to ignore such things a few days ago. Probably the latter. Irina could walk to Jack's room and stay with him these last few moments, but she remains here, watching the sunlight on the water. It's a beautiful day; she wishes she'd thought to bring her sunglasses.

After a while, she hears Jack's voice in the corridor, then Katya's low laughter. Irina resists the urge to go to them, even to eavesdrop. She lets their words fall as a blur into the ocean. This is their farewell, not hers, and she'd do as well to get into the habit of trusting her own instincts. She won't be able to monitor them for a long time to come. If Irina can bear it now – with the sweat from her last lovemaking with Jack still damp in her hair – she can bear it hereafter.

Jack walks out without a bag; this surprises her for no reason. Katya's not with him. Irina's arms are folded in front of her, and she doesn't change this posture as he comes close. She says only, "What will you tell the CIA?"

"That a splinter group attacked Reyes' compound, killing Reyes and most of his men." Jack continues, eyes steely, "I'm also telling them that the weapons in storage are still there for the CIA to retrieve."

"They will be." It's a small enough promise to grant. She and Katya don't really need them, anyway.

He steps nearer to her, his eyes seeking hers. "Should I even ask when I'll see you again?"

"When it's possible. You'll know."

Jack doesn't like that answer, but he knows better than to ask for another. He says only, "I'm glad this happened." After a pause, he adds, "All of it."

"Me too." Irina holds out her hand; he twines his fingers with hers. "Take care of Sydney, if she'll let you."

He looks surprised by her words. "Always. You know that." And she does.

They kiss briefly, as though it weren't goodbye. That's as much as Irina can stand right now, and Jack doesn't press for more. One more squeeze of her hand, and then he goes, walking down the gangplank, not looking back. Irina watches as he vanishes into the milling crowds of Rivas, becomes just one of the throng.

Almost as soon as he goes, the Lastochka begins clanging her bells. Irina steps away from gangplank so Katya's crew can pull it in. Apparently Katya's bribes can only buy them so much time, and it's as well they were leaving.

But still she stands on the deck, watching the crowd where she last saw him.

After they're moving out to sea, Katya comes and stands by her sister's side. "How are you?" Katya asks, brushing a finger along the side of Irina's face. The resulting ache reminds Irina how badly she'll be bruised tomorrow. "Reyes made his last blow count, didn't he?"

"Tell me something," Irina says. "Do you ever tire of it?"

"Group sex? Not really." Their eyes meet. "That's not what you meant."

"No." She stares at Katya. "Of taking my scraps. Don't you ever want anything of your own?"

The weapon misses the mark; Irina sees instantly that Katya was expecting this. Only to her sisters is Irina ever predictable. "Scraps? Who is it you're trying to fool? Not me, I should hope."

"You know me," Irina admits.

Katya sighs. "I know what you value."

She hasn't answered Irina's second question, and Irina will not press her. The Katya who shadows her, whose fingerprints are on all Irina's belongings, is the Katya she knows and, yes, loves. If their paths parted, if Katya defined her own trajectory, it might lead her too far away.

A few gulls swoop overhead, squawking in protest, as the Lastochka finally leaves the coast behind. The sisters stand next to each other, wordless. Irina's resentment and her gratitude are inseparable, braided together, a tie that binds them both.

Katya breaks the silence. "I'd tell him now. Soon, anyway. If I were you."

"You aren't." Katya has not led an easy life, not by anyone's standards, but there are pains and crimes that she thankfully does not know and cannot imagine confessing. Irina is prepared to say anything to Jack other than the fatal words_ I failed. _She will tell him only when she is sure that she will never have to say that.

"It will be your decision. No one else's."

"I know." That comes out too harshly, and Irina turns to Katya and smiles a little. "I understand."

Katya brushes a hand though Irina's hair, reminding her of last night, and of sharing a bed when they were children. Then she leaves Irina alone, so she can take care of ship's business. Irina finds she doesn't want to linger on the deck. But she also doesn't want to go back to her room; the sheets are still rumpled. They'll still smell like him.

Instead she goes to the room Jack used, the one he spent almost no time in. Like any good agent, he's cleared it out completely; there's no sign he was ever here.

Irina sits on the bed and breathes in and out slowly, counting heartbeats, slowing them down. Autocircadian meditation doesn't require her to close her eyes, but she does so anyway. There is no danger that she'll fall asleep, and she has no need to dream.

**

THE END  
**


End file.
